To purchase VIP tickets click here!

The Art Center of Corpus Christi will be hosting our first “Souper Bowl” fundraiser, which is being held on Friday, August 31, 2012. To purchase “VIP” tickets to the event please click on “Read More”. The event will have beautiful, one of a kind ceramic bowls that are being crafted and molded by local artist in preparation for this special event. These pieces of self-expression will be up for sale during the event, and local participating restaurants throughout the Coastal Bend area will provide the soup to fill your bowls. To purchase your “VIP” tickets, please click here.

Snacks or meals will be served for the classes, which you will be tested for your glucose at the beginning of class and after the class.  This will also include a free A1c test at your first class and the last class of the eight week session. If you are interested in attending the courses please call the diabetes dept. at 361-887-7979 to get registered.

The last two classes and topics for this eight week session are:

Class #7- 2/28/2012 & 2/29/2012  – “Stress and Coping with Diabetes”
Class #8- 3/6/2012 & 3/7/2012     – “Review and Goal Setting”

Classes held at the Garcia Arts and Education Center
Address: 2021 Agnes Street

• 8 week course
• 2 hour class one day a week
• Morning or evening classes
• Hands On learning
• Meal or snack served in class
• Healthy eating on a budget
• Exercise
• Free of  Charge

For more information call: 361-887-7979

Kids Cafe Program

The Kids’ Café is an after-school program that provides a safe environment where children who do not have adult supervision after school can come and receive a hot meal or snack, in addition to homework assistance. Educational, physical, and social activities are also included as part of he program. The Kids’ Café strives to offer benefits that will hopefully remain with these children their whole lives.

The goal of the Kids’ Café is to help “at risk” children lead active and healthy lifestyles and at the same time provide food and the educational support that often times is lacking at home and to:

GOALS:

• Alleviate childhood hunger by providing nutritionally adequate hot meals or snacks
• Educate children and their families about nutrition and healthy eating habits to help them make better food
  choices
• Provide a safe and encouraging learning environment for children who do not have after school adult supervision
• Provide children with educational, social and recreational interaction
• Provide volunteers with a rewarding experience
• Empower the community in response to problem of childhood hunger

Kids Cafe Backpack Program

The Kids’ Café Backpack  program aims to provide children with nutritious food to take home for the weekend.  The backpack is given on the last day before weekend or holiday vacations.  The food provided is nutritious and child friendly.
How the program works:
1. Extreme food insecure children are identified by school nurse, teachers or councilors to receive a pack each week.
2. A pack is given to a child who has been identified as at risk hunger.
3. The student will receive a pack on Friday before leaving for home.

Mobile Pantry Program

The Mobile Pantry is a program to reach those in rural areas in the surrounding counties. Our goal is to provide and distribute food and personal care items on a monthly basis in the smaller cities that don’t have local help.  The Food Bank of Corpus Christi currently reaches out to the cities like Benavides, Concepcion, Driscoll, Orange Grove, Premont, Realitos, and San Jose.

Nutrition Education Program

This is a comprehensive nutrition education curriculum created by the Nutrition Education Department of the Food Bank of Corpus Christi in cooperation with the USDA’s SNAP Education Program.

“Healthy Kitchens” is a 6-week class that meets once a week to talk about many topics including:

• Pyramid
• Nutrition Label Reading
• Shopping & Eating on a Budget
• Healthy Cooking
• Cooking Demos
• Exercise

The program is offered to individuals as well as to partner agencies, community agencies, and rural communities within all of our 11 counites.

Outreach Program

The Outreach Program helps with application assistance provided from start to finish via telephone or in person for those without transportation, ill, disabled, or for those with inflexible work or school schedules.

• Food Stamps
• TANF (cash assistance)
• Adult Medicaid
• Women’s Health Program (special medicaid for women ages 18-44)
• Chip/Children’s Medicaid
• Chip Perinatal Benefits (for your unborn child)
• Long Term Care (medicaid for seniors 65+ or disabled)
• SNAP Cap (food stamps for seniors 50+ and on SSI)

For assistance call:  Helen Escamilla at (361) 887-6291 ext. 109

Volunteer Program

Volunteers are essential to the Food Bank of Corpus Christi. Each month, volunteers contribute more than 3,000 hours to support the Food Bank’s mission by sorting donations, serving clients, working in the Community Garden and a variety of administrative opportunities.  We ask that our volunteers dress appropriately, by wearing comfortable clothing and closed toes shoes.  If you would like further information on volunteering please email James Burnett at jburnett@feedingamerica.org or contact the Food Bank of Corpus Christi at 361-887-6291.

The local PBS station along with other PBS stations in Texas is airing “Feeding Minds: Takes on Hunger and Obesity”. Our local station has filmed a segment, videoing parents at our local kid’s café programs.  The kid’s café program provides hot meals twice a week at the kid’s schools for those whom participate. Volunteers help the children with there homework, tutoring, music, reading, computer and life skills. The Food Bank of Corpus Christi hopes that you can plan on watching this educating documentary.

Texas PBS, which represents 12 public television stations across the state, has finished production of, “Feeding Minds: Texas Takes on Hunger and Obesity.”  It is a documentary program that explores the overlapping challenges of childhood hunger and obesity, and what seven cities in Texas are doing to solve this problem. The program is hosted by Jeremy Everett, director of Texas Hunger Initiative at Baylor University, and Camille D. Miller, president/CEO of Texas Health Institute. USDA Food and Nutrition Service Southwest Regional Administrator Bill Ludwig was interviewed for the program. We hope you will tune in, and let others know about the upcoming broadcast.

The program has premiered on all 12 Texas PBS stations on Thursday, February 23rd.
Those stations are:
KACV/Amarillo
KLRU/Austin
KAMU/College Station
KEDT/Corpus Christi
KCOS/El Paso
KMBH/Harlingen
Houston PBS/KUHT/Houston
KNCT/Kileen & Waco
KTTZ/Lubbock
KPBT/Basin PBS/Midland & Odessa
KERA/Dallas, Fort Worth/Public Media for North Texas
KLRN/San Antonio

These stations’ local listings can confirm air times, as well as rebroadcast dates and times.  Stations may opt to put the program up on their websites following the program’s premiere and rebroadcast as well.

Texas PBS has three promotional videos up that can be linked to your websites, shared through your social media networks, etc.
They are:
2 minute screener; 30 second promo; 20 second promo

Texas PBS also has a Facebook page for the Texas Feeding Minds outreach and broadcast components.

We encourage you to share the information about this important Texas PBS program on the overlapping issues of childhood hunger and obesity. According to Texas PBS, the program was made possible by a grant from Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Texas.

This electronic message contains information generated by the USDA solely for the intended recipients. Any unauthorized interception of this message or the use or disclosure of the information it contains may violate the law and subject the violator to civil or criminal penalties. If you believe you have received this message in error, please notify the sender and delete the email immediately.

ADVOCATE

Are you ready to advocate on behalf of those who go hungry everyday? One of the most important ways you can fight hunger in America is by becoming a hunger advocate. Advocacy is critical to fighting hunger, and becoming a hunger advocate offers many ways to become active not only in important public policy issues of the day, but also within your community.

Our advocates communicate with their elected officials about hunger issues. They talk to their friends and other social contacts about the need for a solution to hunger. Many share their personal experiences with hunger. They develop their own personal hunger advocacy profiles so that we can work with them on a personal level to achieve the most effective actions and bring about true change.

We encourage you to join us as a hunger advocate today. Click on the link below and get involved in fighting hunger in Corpus Christi, throughout Texas and across America!

www.hungeractioncenter.org

The Food Bank of Corpus Christi provides food to qualifying 501C3 organizations or qualified churches who distribute food to families and individuals in need. Currently, we are looking for additional distribution sites in Corpus Christi, especially in the following zip codes: 78418, 78401, 78404 and 78415. Additionally, we need distribution sites south of SPID between Kostoryz and Staples; and in Duval Country; Benavides; Jim Wells; the Premont area and Falfurrias. Also: in Brooks County, Bee County, Kleberg County and especially Kingsville. We’d like to see groups work together to support one pantry in the smaller communities. For example, in Mathis, one pantry is supported both financially and with physical volunteers to serve the entire community.

Sponsoring a food drive can be fun and easy! Here are some easy steps to follow that can help you organize a successful event.

Plan Ahead.
Determine a leadership committee who will be responsible for planning your event. Remember that coordination of a successful event should not fall on the shoulders of just one person, but a team of dedicated volunteers who believe in the cause.

Set an Attainable Goal.
Decide how many pounds of food or dollars you’d like to collect. A good rule of thumb: set a goal for each participant and multiply this number by your total head count.

Let Us Know About Your Plans.
Contact us at (361) 887-6291 and speak to one of our staff about your plans. We may have some ideas to help make your event more successful. Also, there may be some marketing assistance we can assist you with to help you get the word out about your drive.

Organize a Kick-Off Event.
Invite participants, potential sponsors and even the local news media. The Food Bank of Corpus Christi may have supplies available to assist in fundraising, such as barrels for collection of non-perishable food items and brochures about our mission.

Keep It Fun and Simple.
Have a pizza party for participants and consider gathering prizes from local merchants to use as incentives. Create challenges among individuals or teams. Display daily or weekly totals in highly visible areas to encourage participation.

Maximizing various partnerships within our community, the Food Bank of Corpus Christi is able to stretch food and monetary donations in order to help more people.

For example, our Outreach Coordinator assists local residents in applying for numerous social programs such as food stamps, Adult Medicaid, TANF, Women’s Healthcare and CHIP Children’s Medicaid. Oftentimes, residents are not aware of their eligibility for these social services. Application assistance is even available via telephone for those with disabilities or inflexible work/school schedules.

FOOD BANK of CORPUS CHRISTI VOLUNTEER OPPORTUNITIES-FOR INFORMATION CALL 361-887-6291 or email James Burnett at : jaburnett@feedingamerica.org

Volunteers are essential to the Food Bank of Corpus Christi. Each month, volunteers contribute more than 3,000 hours to support the Food Bank’s mission by sorting donations, serving clients, working in the Community Garden and a variety of administrative opportunities such as stuffing envelopes, data entry and web based projects.

SORT DONATIONS:  Sorting donations in our product recovery warehouse gives you a “behind-the-scenes” look at how donations from the community get to hungry South Texans. Volunteers inspect, clean, sort, box and make donations ready for distribution to Partner Agencies and their clients.

Available days/times: Monday through Friday from 1pm to 4pm and Saturdays 9am to 1pm and 1pm to 4pm ( available three  Saturdays a month)

Call the volunteer info line at 887-6291 for scheduled dates.

Dress code: warehouse is not climate controlled. Dress comfortable, closed toe shoes required.

BREAD FOR LIFE SHOPPING PANTRY: The Food Bank hosts the Bread for Life pantry on Tuesdays and Fridays each week. This pantry is sponsored by two local church groups and affords great opportunities to assist with stocking food on shelves, coolers and freezer to allow clients to “shop” for their needs rather than taking prepackaged boxs of food. Volunteers help with unloading the food, stock and assist clients with their shopping. The pantry is open from 1pm to 3pm, and then the volunteers assist with light clean-up until 3:30pm.

Available days/times: Tuesday and Friday only-open from 1pm to 3pm Volunteers work from 11:30am to 3:30pm

Dress code: Work is inside the pantry and is air conditioned.  Closed toe shoes required

Community Garden: The Food Bank Community Garden’s mission is to increase access to fresh and healthy produce by teaching our partner agencies and their clients how to grow food. We offer opportunities to help with planting, weeding, maintaining the garden beds and harvesting the fresh produce for distribution.

Available days/times: Tuesdays and Fridays

Volunteers work from 8am to noon

Dress code: dress weather appropriate and prepare to work out in the sun during summer months.