Pat Van Burkleo: Feeding Louisiana Helps Address Underutilized SNAP Benefits in Community

In this interview, Pat Van Burkleo, the executive director of Feeding Louisiana, the Louisiana Food Bank Association, discusses the outreach dynamics of the organization and food banks.

Transcript

In terms of access, how would someone find out about Feeding Louisiana if they're not sure what it does?

I'm not really concerned that a client figures out me because that's not what my role is. They’ve got to figure out how to get to the food bank. We do a lot of outreach programming. We have a couple of things that we have grants for that we pass through to the local food banks.

We have a SNAP [Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program] outreach program. We have 13 people out in the state trying to find people who haven't qualified for SNAP and we have a wonderful tool, a mapping tool, that we can actually see communities where there is high eligibility but low enrollment in SNAP. So we're sending people out to those communities to get those people enrolled in SNAP, because SNAP is really actually better for individuals who come into the food bank. We can get them enrolled in SNAP and they're going to have a little bit more access to food where they are.

Now we can talk about food deserts and all that kind of stuff, but we also do SNAP education. So, how do you spend those dollars and all those kinds of things? It's 130% of poverty to come to the food bank most of the time to get emergency assistance food. That's USDA food that comes into the state, and then the food banks supplement that food. But yeah, everyone needs to contact their food banks and see if they qualify for the food that comes in.