North Texas Food Bank Releases Southern Dallas Community Impact Report

In partnership with Crossroads Community Services, NTFB held a briefing for elected officials and community members on the work of its network in Southern Dallas.

Within Dallas County, 20% of the county’s more than 406,000 people facing hunger live in just 10 Southern Dallas zip codes.

“That is something we all agree is unacceptable,” said Trisha Cunningham, President and CEO of the North Texas Food Bank.

It is also something the NTFB, its South Dallas distribution hub partner Crossroads Community Services, and its partner pantries are making strides in addressing. They discussed the impact made during the last three fiscal years during a Sept. 26 event at Crossroads.

Between July 1, 2021, and June 30, 2024, the NTFB and its partners have provided access to 30.4 million physical meals in 10 Southern Dallas zip codes as well as 23 million meals that were accessed through the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, which NTFB staff help neighbors apply for.

Those physical meals were distributed through partners like Crossroads, which is the largest provider of food assistance in Southern Dallas County, as well as Catholic Charities, Empowering the Masses, Brother Bill’s Helping Hand, The Mint Foundation, Miles of Freedom and many others. Additionally, NTFB works with multiple campuses to host school pantries and Food 4 Kids distributions, which provide chronically hungry students with bags of kid-friendly groceries to take home over the weekend.

During that same time period, NTFB also awarded $3.1 million in grants to 19 unique partner agencies in Southern Dallas. That money funded things like refrigeration so pantries could store produce, the purchase of trucks for food transportation and the establishment of wraparound services, such as financial literacy or job skills classes that target the underlying barriers to food security.

“We know that we are stronger when we work together and that closing the hunger gap will require innovative partnership and programs,” Trisha said.

Benaye Wadkins Chambers, CEO of Crossroads, agreed partnerships are a key component of the work in Southern Dallas as they strive to create nutrition-stable communities. At Crossroads, they do this through their market, which provides consistent access to nutritious food for neighbors, as well as through their work as a hub, which means they distribute NTFB food to partner pantries in their vicinity.

The idea of food as medicine is also something that Crossroads, NTFB, Brother Bill’s and other organizations are prioritizing.

Benaye said Crossroads is launching a nutrition pharmacy concept at RedBird Mall to ensure referred patients from Parkland and UT Southwestern health centers have access to nutritious food. Along with access to food, diabetic and other patients referred to the market also receive guidance on how to prepare items nutritiously to support their condition. “It’s not enough to give the food,” she said. “You have to teach how to make those culturally relevant foods healthier.”

NTFB recently launched a FoodRx program that allows partner clinics to provide food-insecure patients with a box of food as well as a referral to a partner pantry where they can access produce and other nutritious food to support their health.

These types of programs, Trisha and Benaye said, take a lot of work and funding, which is something they’ll be looking to state leaders for during the upcoming Legislative session.

Trisha also emphasized the importance of advocating for a strong Farm Bill that supports SNAP access as SNAP is the most effective program at targeting food insecurity and it does so while boosting the economy by providing people with dollars to spend at grocery stores.

Wes Keyes, CEO of Brother Bill’s Helping Hand, said in the 80 years their organization has existed, they’ve never seen as much need as they’re seeing today.

Along with its main location that offers a pantry, health clinic and other wraparound services, Brother Bill’s runs pantries in South Dallas through partnerships with BridgeBuilders and Dallas ISD. However, he said, their model is that food assistance is just the start. Like is the case at Crossroads, NTFB and others, their hope is for neighbors take advantage of other programs to become self-sufficient.

“If we’ve done our job, we should lose people to success,” he said. “There should be no need among us in the most prosperous nation in the world.”

NTFB’s Fiscal Year 2022* – Fiscal Year 2024 Impact in Southern Dallas

30.4 million physical meals distributed

23 million meals accessed through SNAP

34% of all food distributed was fresh produce

$3.1 million grant dollars were invested in 19 unique agency partners

*NTFB’s Fiscal Year runs from July 1-June 30