East Texas Food Bank partners with DoorDash to distribute meals to seniors



Longview, TX-The East Texas Food Bank is partnering with DoorDash’s Project Dash to power the delivery of meals to Longview residents who are enrolled in the Senior Box Program.

By partnering with Project DASH, Dashers deliver boxes from one of the food banks’ member agencies so seniors with limited transportation options can receive the meals they need. The Longview Dream Center (LDC) is ETFB’s first pilot site for this service. LDC provides boxes to over 300 seniors each month.

“We are so excited to be able to offer this free service to the seniors we serve in Longview,” said Shonna Barlow, executive director of the Longview Dream Center. “Some of our seniors don’t drive or have to rely on others for transportation or are home- bound, so this is a wonderful service from DoorDash that will help us deliver food to our older population who struggles with food insecurity.”

“The East Texas Food Bank Senior Box Program provides boxes of nutritious food each month to low-income seniors, many who live in isolated, rural communities,” said Tim Butler, ETFB Chief Impact Officer. “Approximately 6,600 seniors receive a box monthly at sites throughout our 26 county service area. We are so grateful for Project DASH’s commitment to helping seniors with hunger relief.”

“We are honored to partner with the East Texas Food Bank to broaden food access in Longview,” said Kelly Jones, DoorDash Drive Director of Government and Nonprofit. “Local delivery has been critical in supporting food banks and food pantries provision of food and other essentials while emphasizing convenience and dignity. We’re excited to continue growing this work in a sustainable way for our partners across the country to continue to meet the ongoing need.”

Project Dash will expand to other locations the ETFB serves with Texarkana launching in a few weeks and other markets in the coming months. Since Project DASH was launched in 2018, it has powered over 2 million deliveries of an estimated more than 35 million meals in the U.S. and Canada.

To qualify for senior boxes applicant must be 60 years of age or older. There is also an income and residency requirement. Click here for more information about the Senior Box Program.

East Texas Food Bank breaks ground on new Tyler Resource Center and Fresh Produce Processing Center

  • ETFB CEO Dennis Cullinane shows plans and drawings for the new Tyler Food Pantry and Produce Distribution Center.

Tyler, TX-The East Texas Food Bank held a groundbreaking today on a new Tyler Resource Center and Fresh Produce Processing Center as part of the overall strategic plan aimed at expanding programs, distributing more food and serving more people.

“We are excited today to move forward with our plans to build a new food pantry in Tyler at our distribution center,” said Dennis Cullinane, CEO of the East Texas Food Bank. “The 2,500 square foot Tyler Resource Center will be located in close proximity to low-income neighborhoods, in a census tract where 34% of the population lives below the poverty line. This is the first time in our history to operate a food pantry onsite at our facility to help close the hunger gap.”

The Tyler Resource Center will include a “Healthy Food Pantry” to provide nutritious food through a client-choice distribution model. The center will be open several days a week including some evenings and weekends to increase access to food assistance. The Benefits Assistance Program will help clients apply for SNAP and other social service benefits.

“We currently estimate that ETFB will serve 500 Smith County households each week and provide 756,000 meals annually with our new Tyler Resource Center,” added Cullinane.

Fresh Produce Processing Center

The construction of a 9,000 square foot Fresh Produce Processing Center will allow the ETFB to collect, store, repackage and distribute fresh fruits and vegetables more efficiently in the 26 county region served by the ETFB.

“Our goal is to sustain our fresh produce distribution at 14 million pounds or 50% of ETFB’s total food distribution by 2025,” said Cullinane. “We distribute boxes of produce each month at multiple locations in East Texas through our Mobile Pantries. Fresh fruits and vegetables are an important part of a healthy diet yet many of our clients are unable to buy produce because of the expense.”

The Tyler Resource Center and Fresh Produce Processing Center, along with other infrastructure such as a new road for delivery trucks, represents a $7 million investment. Funding for these initiatives came from several generous grants including from philanthropist Mackenzie Scott and the American Rescue Plan Act. The new facilities are anticipated to be completed in the summer of 2023.

November Media

Here’s a look at some stories about the East Texas Food Bank during the month of November 2021:

Feeding Neighbors, Building Community: East Texas Food Bank Announces New Strategic Plan

The East Texas Food Bank, East Texas’s largest hunger-relief organization, announces a strategic plan for $11.8 million in investments across its 26-county service area. The plan will work to ensure that the one in five East Texans who are facing hunger have access to the nutritious food they need.

“The COVID-19 pandemic brought about a heightened awareness of hunger in East Texas. We’ve all seen the long lines of cars waiting for hours to receive a free box of groceries. Thankfully, it has also brought out resiliency in our hunger-relief network and unprecedented generosity from our community,” said East Texas Food Bank CEO Dennis Cullinane. “With a renewed sense of understanding and empathy towards hunger in East Texas, now is the time to build upon the momentum and strategically grow our programs to meet the need.”

The announcement comes as East Texas is battling an unprecedented hunger crisis. Texas has the seventh highest food insecurity rate in the nation. Locally, one in five East Texans, including one in four children, are facing hunger. That’s approximately 239,800 East Texans, including 85,450 children.

“Unfortunately, the pandemic hit our most vulnerable neighbors the hardest. Seniors couldn’t safely go to the grocery store. Hard-working parents had to switch to at-home learning and lost the free and reduced meal programs through school. College students lost their jobs when restaurants shut down. We heard so many stories like these from people who had never needed food assistance before the pandemic,” Cullinane said. “Even though our state reopened and the economy is on the path to recovery, we are still seeing an increased need for food assistance. Our response continues to be a marathon, not a sprint.”

To meet the need, the East Texas Food Bank, in collaboration with its network of partner agencies, community leaders and generous donors, will work to ensure people struggling with hunger have access to the nutritious food they need to thrive. In order to do this, the East Texas Food Bank seeks to distribute 32 million meals a year throughout East Texas by 2025.

The East Texas Food Bank will accomplish this ambitious goal through six key strategic initiatives in its highest-need communities:

  1. Major Partner Agency Investment– ETFB will invest in strategic partner food pantries to expand their capacity to provide traditional meal distribution as a primary way to increase local food resources and increase their SNAP outreach and applications.
  2. Resource Centers– ETFB will bring the resource center model started in North Lufkin to other high-need communities. The resource centers will include a client-choice, healthy pantry and other wrap-around support services to provide a one-stop-shop of support for families.
  3. Targeted Direct and Mobile Pantry Distributions– ETFB will continue direct, targeted distributions it started during the pandemic to reach low-income, under-resourced neighborhoods with fresh produce.
  4. Fresh Produce and Purchasing Program– There is a high need for fresh produce, which is crucial for a healthy diet. ETFB will continue scaling its fresh produce and purchased food program to increase the availability and variety of items to its partner agencies.
  5. State and National Advocacy– ETFB will work in partnership with Feeding Texas and Feeding America to secure high-priority public policy, legislation and resources to support the collective, long-term goals to end hunger.
  6. Infrastructure- Key investments will include building out the East Texas Food Bank facilities and fleet and adding the staffing needed to meet this ambitious goal.

The revised strategic plan was made possible in part by a $9 million donation by renowned philanthropist Mackenzie Scott. In late 2020, Scott’s team anonymously researched 6,490 organizations and ultimately chose to invest in only 384. Of the 200 food banks across the U.S., ETFB was one of 42 selected.

In the Medium post, Scott said her team of advisors took a data-driven approach to identifying organizations with strong leadership teams and results, with special attention to those operating in communities facing high projected food insecurity, high measures of racial inequity, high local poverty rates and low access to philanthropic capital.

Scott noted, “We do this research and deeper diligence not only to identify organizations with high potential impact, but also to pave the way for unsolicited and unexpected gifts given with full trust and no strings attached. Our research is data-driven and rigorous, our giving process can be human and soft.”

“This generous investment in the East Texas Food Bank is a vote of confidence in the work we are all doing together to end hunger in East Texas,” Cullinane said. “Every partner agency, volunteer, donor, staff member, board member and stakeholder should feel proud to receive this recognition and investment.”

However, Cullinane added that the hunger crisis in East Texas is bigger than what any one philanthropist can solve. It will take individuals, corporations, foundations and our local organizations working together to end hunger.

“Ending hunger and its devastating effects in East Texas is within our reach when we all come together to fight hunger. With these investments and continued generosity of all East Texans, we can end hunger together,” Cullinane said.

In The News

East Texas Food Bank to receive philanthropic investment from MacKenzie Scott

Recently, philanthropist MacKenzie Scott published a list of charitable investments that she is making in non-profits across the United States, Puerto Rico and Washington D.C. According to the article Scott published on Medium, 384 organizations were selected and the East Texas Food Bank is honored and proud to be included in this list of gift recipients.

“We are quickly convening our board of directors, leadership team and other stakeholders to ensure that the philanthropy entrusted to us will help more East Texans access more nutritious food and support services equitably and efficiently- now, during the crisis of COVID-19, and for the long term,” said East Texas Food Bank Chief Executive Officer Dennis Cullinane.

ETFB plans to share details about the gift and how it will be invested across ETFB’s 26 county service area in early 2021.

“This generous investment in the East Texas Food Bank is a vote of confidence in the work we are all doing together to end hunger in East Texas,” Cullinane said. “Every partner agency, volunteer, donor, staff member, board member and stakeholder should feel proud to receive this recognition and investment.”

Cullinane added that the investment will serve to advance our strategic plan and our capacity to achieve the goal of ending hunger in East Texas by enabling us to invest in initiatives and tactics that up until now lacked resources.

“The hunger crisis is bigger than what any one philanthropist can solve,” Cullinane added. Ending hunger and its devastating effects in East Texas is within our reach when we all come together to fight hunger. With this investment and continued generosity of all East Texans, we can end hunger together.”

The announcement comes as East Texas is battling an unprecedented hunger crisis. Texas has the 7th highest food insecurity rate in the nation. Locally, one in five East Texans, including one in three children, is facing hunger. That’s 256,410 East Texans, including 96,350 children and households of color experience disproportionately higher rates of hunger.

“The East Texas Food Bank values transparency and after a thorough review, analysis and strategic planning, we will share our plans for this investment and the impact it will have on the people we serve,” Cullinane added.