Oregon Food Bank COVID-19 Response

At Oregon Food Bank, we are dedicated to ending hunger and its root causes by elevating the leadership of communities most impacted by food insecurity. One example is through the OFB Ambassador program, which recruits leaders from culturally-specific communities and provides 15 months of highly adaptive programming such as relationship building, intercultural exchange, organizational start up support and program development and implementation. Ambassadors create culturally-specific projects that aim to improve their communities' access to food security resources, address root causes of hunger, and create engagement opportunities for a more inclusive democracy. 

Our 2022 cohort of 6 OFB Ambassadors had a prolific year of work, supporting BIPOC, immigrant/refugee communities, and rural communities with food and resource access.  Ambassador activities included providing language appropriate political education to clients about the legislative process in Oregon; distributing bus tickets to Afghani families and creating culturally specific food box deliveries for the Arabic speaking community; working with OFB Learning Gardens to grow culturally specific leafy greens and root crops; implementing a Pacific Islander Food Distribution project; and creating a Necesidades del Dia (The Needs of the Day) program to purchase and deliver non-food essential items to farmworker communities in rural Oregon counties. 

The cohort of 2023 Ambassadors began in October of last year and are implementing projects across 7 Oregon counties. These 12 Ambassadors representing Black, Spanish speaking, Urban Native, Filipino, Sierra Leonean, Nigerian, Ghanaian, and Ukrainian communities have a myriad of community activities for the year which includes DV (domestic violence) survivor access to food; exploring first food harvesting partnerships; interviewing black youth around mental health services; holistic services and resource navigation; providing aid, cultural understanding and solidarity for refugees through a resource fair; and culturally specific/responsive food distributions. 

"No one is an island,” former Ambassador Denis Nyongesa shares. “We all need each other. Sometimes we don't realize that, but in the long run, when something hits, when something comes up, I realize that I can't do it on my own. I need help. And that's why we need our community."