The Middletown Press (Middletown, CT)
Food banks join to better serve needy
The state’s two largest nonprofit organizations serving the needs of Connecticut’s hungry are joining forces.
The merger of Bloomfield-based Foodshare and Connecticut Food Bank, headquartered in Wallingford, will take effect on Saturday. Boards of directors for each organization voted to approve the move on Wednesday.
The merger was completed about seven weeks after officials with both organizations acknowledged that such a move was being considered.
By combining into a single organization, the new entity will have annual budget of approximately $110 million, 115 paid employees, and more than 8,000 volunteers annually. Officials for the two organizations said the merger will not result in any layoffs.
Jason Jakubowski will become president and chief executive officer for the combined organization. Jakubowski currently serves in a similar role with Foodshare.
“There may be some positions that are currently empty that will not be filled,” he said. “But the need is not going away.”
Jakubowski traced the merger to a point last year after Valarie Shultz-Wilson left her job in February 2020 as chief executive officer of the Connecticut Food Bank after just eight months. It was after the position had gone unfilled for a few months that directors of the two organizations began informal discussions about combining into one, he said.
“It’s really a lot like dating,” Jakubowski said. “At first, there is a mutual attraction and after a while it starts to get serious. And until the board votes actually occurred, there were times I wasn’t sure it was going to be a done deal.”
Wes Higgins, a past Connecticut Food Bank board chair who will head the board of directors of the new entity, called the merger “historic.”
“Now we will be able to address hunger with a united voice, a fully coordinated distribution model,
and an integrated set of programs made available across the entire state,” Higgins said.
Beth Henry, Foodshare’s board chairwoman, said by pooling the resources of the two organization, “we can also utilize our combined donations to provide more efficient programs, better support our member agencies, assist seniors and children in need.”
Henry is one of 23 people on the board of the new organization. The food banks will continue to operate out of their Wallingford, Bloomfield, and Bridgeport facilities,
and will continue to use their existing trade names until a new name is chosen in the coming weeks.
Both food banks are currently members of Feeding America — the leading national anti-hunger organization.
Representatives of local food banks served by the two organizations said the merger will be beneficial in helping feed the state’s hungry.
“With their combined purchasing power, they’ll be able to do more with the resource they have,”
said Kerry Walsh, executive director of the Cheshire Community Food Pantry. Another benefit, Walsh said, is that merger will enable local food pantries to pick up their regular food allotment at more locations.
Even with the merger, there will still be two food banks in Connecticut. An Illinois-based nonprofit is poised to become Connecticut’s newest food bank.
Midwest Food Bank officials said in December they are looking for a location in the Hartford area for a facility that would provide
food for the needy in Connecticut and other New England states. Midwest Food Bank has 10 locations in seven states around the country, with the nearest to Connecticut located outside Harrisburg, Pa.
Jakubowski said he doesn’t view the new organization as competition.
“My general philosophy is anyone who wants to help solve hunger is a friend and colleague of ours,” he said.