Food & Friends Celebrates 15 Years of Partnership with AVON Foundation

By Craig Shniderman, Executive Director of Food & Friends

15 years ago, Food & Friends had no corporate or foundation funder of our newly established breast cancer services. The AVON Foundation took a chance on us and our new initiative. A $50,000 grant in 2001, which, 15 successive grants later, has now turned into a $4.3 million investment, 1.6 million meals, and over 2,000 lives changed. We are so glad that AVON’s support for our program has in more recent years been expanded to the Foundation’s support of similar programs in other major metropolitan areas. 

Many breast cancer survivors are women with children. Through our Pink Ribbon Delivery Service, funded by the AVON Foundation, we provide meals not only for the survivor, but also for household members– her partner, spouse, or children. This wicked illness devastates families as well as individuals, so we’re proud that we can provide for the family unit as a whole.

Food & Friends has partnered with the AVON Foundation for 15 years and for 13 AVON39 walks. This year I cheered the walkers in my drag cheerleader persona, Miss Ivanna Beat Breast Cancer.  As the walkers trudged through rain and gloomy conditions, I reflected on the continued success of the AVON39. Many “thon” events have a life span that eventually leads to diminished interest, but with AVON39, there is a passion for this cause that sustains the event’s success.

That’s not surprising because the incidence of breast cancer is undiminished. While the mortality rate from breast cancer, taken all together, has improved, people of color and of lower incomes fare far less well. And because the incidence remains high among all groups, there has been no turning away from this issue. And so two weekends ago we witnessed more than 2000 people raise a very large sum of money through their personal engagement.

Given our strong partnership with the AVON Foundation, it’s important for Food & Friends to show our commitment to this event and play a unique role. In addition to providing our famous cookies and a delicious lunch for the walkers, Food & Friends fields a support team. In years when I’m not participating as a walker, I don my cheerleader attire and theatrical makeup to join in cheering on the walkers as a member of the support team. 

My participation in drag is the means by which I express my solidarity with these remarkable fundraisers and the women who face this terrible illness. (I’ll add that about one percent of breast cancer patients are men.) I certainly also understand the immediacy of this issue as a man with a wife and four children. Though my drag presence is amusing, I am deeply aware that there is no humor in this disease.   

Our world at Food & Friends is a world of gratitude. We have 9,000 volunteers and we’re grateful to them. We have thousands of donors, and we’re certainly grateful to them also. But among our funders, the AVON Foundation has a unique place in our history.  The Foundation’s gifts include the $750,000 grant that built our kitchen, which not only serves people with breast cancer, but people with HIV/AIDS and other serious illnesses. This was AVON’s gift not only to our breast cancer survivors, but to every client who receives meals from the AVON Foundation kitchen. It’s a generous, inclusive gift and I’ll always be grateful to AVON because when no one else was there, they were. And not only that, they’ve remained there for 15 years. That’s a lot of friendship.

 

Malnutrition & Cancer

“Weight loss in cancer patients is due to depletion of both adipose tissue and skeletal muscle mass, while the non-muscle protein compartment is relatively preserved thus distinguishing cachexia from simple starvation”.

-Michael Tisdale, Professor of Cancer Biochemistry, Aston University

What this means is when a person without cancer loses weight intentionally or unintentionally, they lose primarily fat (adipose tissue). Weight loss for a cancer patient is much more detrimental; in addition to losing fat, they also lose muscle. This indiscriminate type of weight loss places cancer patients at great risk for serious infections like pneumonia, which causes a disruption to their treatment plan.

Malnutrition prevalence in cancer patients varies widely from 20% to 80% based on the site of their primary tumor. A weight loss of 10% of a person’s weight pre-cancer increases their risk of all-cause mortality while going through cancer treatment. Notice, there is no mention of whether or not a person’s starting weight was considered within normal limits or healthy; even when someone is obese at the beginning of cancer treatment, our goal should always be to help their weight stay stable throughout treatment.

As dietitians, our primary goal in working with cancer patients is weight stability which in turn reduces disruption to treatment and protects a patient’s performance status. Providing the high quality nutrient dense foods that we do at Food & Friends helps make weight stability an achievable goal for our clients.

Robin Brannon, MS, RD,CSO, Nutrition Services Manager

Robin Brannon is the Nutrition Services Manager at Food & Friends. Previously she spent three years as the Clinical Nutrition Manager at The George Washington University Hospital. She serves as the associate editor for Oncology Nutrition Connection, the peer-reviewed journal of the Oncology Nutrition Dietetic Practice Group. She also serves on the Chesapeake Food Leadership Council, The Dietetics Program Advisory Board at the University of the District of Columbia, and Patient Education Committee Member of the Aplastic Anemia & MDS International Foundation. Robin earned a Masters in Clinical Nutrition from New York University, and a specialty certification in oncology nutrition from the Commission on Dietetic Registration. She received her Bachelor’s in Dietetics from College of the Ozarks.

4 Days Left to Give: Bring Hope to Our Sick Neighbors

Hope, compassion, strength and quality of life. You bring these to children and adults as they battle through their darkest days.

Thanks to your support, nearly 2,900 individuals received specialized meals and nutrition counseling this year. This is wonderful, but these individuals will still need you next year along with the many others that await our services.

Your gift of $25, $50, $100 or more will mean so much to so many. Please donate today.

As you celebrate the New Year with family and friends, please don’t forget those who count on your support every day. This year may be ending, but we remain committed and you can help provide the critical meals clients need during the coming winter months.

Make a gift to ensure that we will be there when needed most.

On behalf of the entire community, I thank you in advance for your support this holiday season – together we will continue to make a difference!

Best,

Craig Shniderman
Executive Director

P.S. You can build a healthier and more caring community with a gift today.

You have the power to improve lives

You have the power to improve the lives of men, women and children struggling with the hardships of critical illness. This is a daily battle - they cannot fight without you.

Please make a gift today to ensure our sick neighbors do not have to face their illness alone or on an empty stomach.

The impact of your support is best expressed with Claire's words:

"You have literally saved me and my child ... Not only did we have food on the table, but having so many wonderful people helping us three times a week brightened our days. Though I’ll always live under the shadow of my disease, my health is much better now.”

This year is ending, but our commitment to those in need is not. Your gift today is needed to buy groceries, prepare more meals and make deliveries to the homes of clients just like Claire.

Thank you for helping us be there for our clients when they need us the most.

Sincerely,

Craig Shniderman
Executive Director

P.S. A small act of generosity can have a big impact – each gift of $100 provides 4 days of meals for someone in need.

You Can Put the "Giving" Back in Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving is a time to reunite with loved ones, feast on delicious food, and contemplate the things for which we are grateful. However, for thousands in our community, Thanksgiving takes on a larger meaning. For those battling a life-challenging illness, Thanksgiving is about living to celebrate another holiday and putting aside their cares for just one day.

By making a gift today, you can make Thanksgiving extra special for our clients and make it possible for Food & Friends to prepare and deliver 3,500 complete holiday dinners.

With over 74% of our clients living in poverty, many do not have enough money to purchase food on a day-to-day basis, let alone for Thanksgiving. Please help make sure no client spends the holiday hungry by sending a gift today.

Life-challenging illnesses like HIV/AIDS, breast cancer, or prostate cancer are relentless everyday struggles. These struggles won’t stop for clients just because it is Thanksgiving, but on this special day of thanks, knowing they will receive a full Thanksgiving meal to share with their loved ones - made possible because of your gift - can make a very big difference.

Watch Food & Friends In Action

We are very excited to share our new video with you. Watch and pass it on!







Thank you to Mercury for the pro-bono production of this video.

Expanding Services in Shady Grove

Food & Friends has served Montgomery County for many years. Last year, we provided about 115,000 meals to 344 residents.

We know that many more people are in need of Food & Friends’ services and we always have our eye on how to care for more children and adults. The fastest population growth in Montgomery County is outside the Beltway. We’ve been looking at this and have decided we should further expand our care to patients served by Shady Grove Adventist Hospital located in Rockville, Maryland.

Shady Grove is a big facility and has expanded its programs in recent years serving the rapidly growing upcounty and outside the Beltway residents. The Hospital includes a growing Comprehensive Cancer Program which will increase the number of referrals we receive from Shady Grove. We expect to add about 100 Shady Grove patients plus family members during 2013 providing these clients with 55,000 meals as well as nutrition counseling.

While Montgomery County, taken altogether, is relatively affluent, this is not true for most of the residents we care for. Fifty-seven percent of our County clients have household incomes of less than $2,000 a month. In Montgomery County, as elsewhere, we know that low-income residents often face difficult choices in meeting basic needs for nutritious food versus obtaining medical care and otherwise live on very tight budgets.

Our intention is to increasingly care for a broad range of our neighbors facing critical health challenges without limitation as to specific illnesses. In no way will we diminish our services to patients living with HIV/AIDS in Montgomery County or anywhere in Greater Washington.

All of this is important because after almost 25 years, Food & Friends remains the sole provider of home-delivered and medically-oriented nutrition services. Understanding that this work rests on us alone, we must always be working to provide for more residents. Just as we are attentive to the HIV/AIDS epidemic, the individuals and families facing a range of profound illnesses count on us.

We have great working relationships with health professionals in the Montgomery County Government and with many other suburban referral partners. We’re looking forward to this expansion. I might add that Montgomery County Executive Ike Leggett is supportive of our work. We are hopeful that the State of Maryland will soon increase our funding so as to partner with us in this and other expanded service in Maryland.

In subsequent blogs, I’ll share with you some of our plans for other jurisdictions. You can count on Food & Friends to continue our expansion so as to reach a growing number of critically-ill residents –our neighbors.

Always your friend,

Craig Shniderman
Executive Director



Craig Shniderman has led Food & Friends as the Executive Director since April 1995. He is a native of the Washington area and has lived and worked in Greater Washington for almost his entire career.

My Mother No Longer Needs Your Service

Today, a member of our Client Services Staff, received a heart-warming email from the son of a client and we had to share it with you:

I wanted to let you know that my mother will no longer be needing your food delivery service. Fortunately, my mom is doing much better since she finished chemo and she is capable of cooking and taking charge of her nutrition. 

Your food deliveries have been a great help to us and we think your organization provides a great service. However, I hope we will not need the services again, if you know what I mean.

Thank You ... I look forward to donating as part of our CFC campaign at work.

Your support makes successful stories like these possible. And, you can continue to offer your support by participating in your offices' CFC or United Way Campaign.

More than Food & Friends, but Family

Your Support Helped Two Sisters Celebrate Life Despite Cancer.

A cancer diagnosis can have a profound effect on a person, especially when it’s your sister who is diagnosed. When a family member faces cancer, other family members often take on new responsibilities while coping with the added stress. Nothing prepared Barbara Ramundo for the journey she would take as she became the primary caregiver for her sister Sue, who battled pancreatic cancer last year.

In addition to working full-time, Barbara helped Sue with her medications, doctor’s appointments, laundry, grocery shopping, bills, her dog, cooking and an abundance of household chores. Barbara wanted to be there for her sister but these new responsibilities quickly became overwhelming.

When friends asked what they could do, Barbara always requested a homecooked meal. “I do not think people realize how much of a difference one meal makes,” says Barbara. Barbara was thankful for the large support network she had but soon realized that there is only so much her friends could do. “We were lucky to have support from loved ones but they can’t be there for you all the time.” So she decided to look for additional support – for her sister, herself and the rest of her family.

Within a few days of talking with Sue’s doctor about Food & Friends, they began receiving home-delivered meals. These fresh, healthy meals made Barbara and Sue’s days more manageable and less stressful.

“People take for granted how much time and effort goes into thinking about and cooking food,” says Barbara. “Food & Friends changed our lives.”

Food & Friends’ services not only alleviated stress but allowed Barbara to spend more quality time with her loving, funny and hardworking sister.

A few weeks before Sue passed away, Food & Friends delivered a decorated cake to celebrate her 61st birthday. “We were able to celebrate her life in those last days,” expresses Barbara. “Little things like a cooked meal and cake made the end of her life better and added a level of comfort to our lives.”

“We miss her humor a lot,” says Barbara. “Having these meals delivered to us gave me time to cherish the last moments with her instead of worrying about the daily stress of life.”

Delivering Duo: Mom and daughter make a difference with just a couple hours a week

Your support helps to deliver more than 3,700 nutritious meals every day. Delivery volunteer Lisa Anbinder and her 4-year-old daughter, Celia, see firsthand the effect these meals have on clients.

 

Lisa and Celia deliver meals to clients every Friday. 
Lisa adopted a route that fits her busy schedule.

When Lisa was facing thyroid cancer six years ago, she was fortunate to have a husband, close friends and children who were able to care for her. Without such a support system, her story might be told a little differently.

Motivated by her past illness and desire to serve others, Lisa and her husband have been major donors to Food & Friends for many years. Recently Lisa found a new way to make an impact as a delivery volunteer. Now, every Friday, Lisa and Celia bring companionship and delicious meals to clients throughout Arlington.

“It’s really nice to see the other side of Food & Friends. We’ve been in the kitchen and we’ve given money but I’d never been in touch with the client side,” explains Lisa. “It’s interesting to see the end of the process, where the prepared meals go.”

As a busy stay-at-home mom, Lisa appreciates the flexibility of the work. Specifically, she was looking for a volunteer activity she could do with her young daughter. Food & Friends was the perfect fit.

“I like the fact that she can come along and be exposed to this kind of volunteering,” says Lisa. “My deliveries take a little bit longer having Celia with me, but in the long run it’s a nice thing for her to know that it’s a normal part of what we do.”

Whether donating, volunteering or attending events, Lisa looks forward to continuing her family’s involvement with Food & Friends. Join Lisa and adopt a route in your neighborhood. Once you adopt a route, you will always deliver to the same area. Be prepared to build bonds and friendships that last a lifetime.

Sign up for our ChopTalk newsletter to read stories like Lisa's and other outstanding individuals and groups whose generous spirit, like yours, allows us to have an ongoing and tremendous impact on the lives of our neighbors facing serious illness.