Episode #17 of Intentional Wealth: Introduction to Food Helpers of Washington County with Athena Petrolias

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Welcome to Intentional Wealth, a monthly podcast where, alongside notable financial professional guests, Private Wealth Advisor and Founder of Braun-Bostich & Associates, Amy Braun-Bostich, delivers useful insights and strategies that help YOU live your best financial life! Remember, when your goals are meaningful and your wealth has purpose, you can truly live with intention.

Now here's the host of Intentional Wealth, Amy Braun-Bostich.

Amy Braun-Bostich: Hello and welcome back to Intentional Wealth. Thank you for joining us today. We are joined today with Athena Petrolias. Athena is operations manager for the organization Food Helpers in Pennsylvania, Food Helpers is Washington County's leader for helping those fighting Against Hunger. For over 42 years, their nonprofit organization has provided programs distributing supplement food and nutritional information as well as education to food insecure residents of Washington County.

With Food Helpers’ development that we'll get into today, they have allowed their organization to not only feed the hungry, but address socioeconomic factors, provide education and resources, low cost retail experiences and instruction on growing one's own food. Please welcome Athena. Athena, thank you for being here.

Athena Petrolias: Well, thank you for having Food Helpers on the Braun Bostitch podcast. Thank you.

Amy Braun-Bostich: Oh no, we appreciate you taking the time just to get started. How did you start working with Food Helpers and what does your role there entail?

Athena Petrolias: It's really rather simple. I'm a retired school administrator and the CEO gave me a call and said, are you looking for a job? And I said, well, what do you have in mind? He said, you can coordinate volunteers and help feed kids in schools. And I said, you're on. If it means getting some food to kids in schools, not a problem. So about two years ago, this year will be two years this summer. I signed on and was overwhelmed with the team that's here and their commitment to the region and to the amazing volunteers that in the Washington county area, just very, very committed, very loyal volunteers that step up and they come including your folks, including your team that came in and helped us pack the couple thousand bags of student snacks for the Washington county elementary schools.

Amy Braun-Bostich: Yeah, that was a great experience.

Athena Petrolias: We loved having you. It's so I've been doing this now. This is my second year, like I said, and for me it's giving back. I was in the schools in an administrative role, and I witnessed a lot of kids who did not come to school with snacks between the breakfast and the lunch. Schools in Pennsylvania do have free and reduced lunch and breakfast rolls right now for our kids, but there are a lot of families that some don't take advantage of it and other families who do take advantage of it still don't have the resources to be able to purchase some of the snack foods that help some of the younger kids during the day when they are having their snack to keep up with the demand of new snacks in their lunch, in their backpacks to have in the middle of the day.

Amy Braun-Bostich: I don't think anybody really realizes how much child hunger there is in the United States. I think everybody just assumes that everybody has enough food. And that certainly isn't the case, especially in Pennsylvania. I mean, between the rising living costs, economic inequality, limited access to grocery stores in rural areas, even in urban areas, what are the challenges you see families face and what steps do food helpers take to alleviate those in need?

Athena Petrolias: Well, I just want to say with a very broad brushstroke that food insecurity is very real, and it can come as a result of basically, I see two things that illness and job loss. Those are the two major incidences that you lose your job, you have a. Or you have a health issue that doesn't allow you to work. You're going, you may have some difficulty with food insecurity. The program itself and we'll go. I know we'll talk more, a little bit more about food helpers and what we do, but if we talk about it from the school perspective, just the little MOOCHI program that you all came to help pack, if you just.

All you have to do is really look on the Pennsylvania Department of Education's website to look at the school districts in Washington county, and you can see clearly it's public knowledge of the percentages of the students who are eligible for a free and reduced lunch in the schools. And there are a handful of school districts, one in particular in the county, that has 100% of their students receiving free and reduced lunches. And what does that mean? Well, if you look at the poverty levels and what entails being part of that federal poverty line program, a family of four that makes approximately 40 or $41,000 a year would qualify for a free reduced lunch in our schools.

So, if you have school districts with 100% of their population are close to it that are receiving free and reduced lunches, you have some food insecurity going on with these families. What we did is we tried to target those schools at the start of the program two years ago and contact the school districts and say, hey, we have this available for you. It comes along with a really neat app where the Kids can take a picture of the food they're eating and talk a little bit about healthy choices in foods. So, the school districts were on board. We didn't have a whole lot of difficulty in getting the school districts to sign on and say, hey, give us some food for our kids. We won't say no to food for our kids.

Athena Petrolias: And then the other programs that we offer, the two really big ones are the Senior Box program, which is Pennsylvania's Senior Box program that provides a box of produce to our seniors in the region, and the community outreach program, which if you go to the food helpers website, that's www.foodhelpers.org, you will see our distributions across the Washington county area once a month where families can just sign up online and go and get a box of food during the hours that they're distributing. So those are the two big ones along with the little MOOCHI program. So, we, you know, and if we have, we've had, we get calls. If we, if a family needs an emergency box, that's not a problem, they call us, and we just make sure they get it.

So those are the Pennsylvania senior food boxes and the community outreach boxes are the two major forms of getting food to families in the region.

Amy Braun-Bostich: We've packed boxes many times, but this was our first time doing the MOOCHI program.

Athena Petrolias: Yeah, the MOOCHI. So, it's newer.

Amy Braun-Bostich: If, if somebody is facing food insecurity, then do they just go online to register? Do they have to?

Athena Petrolias: Well, they can call. I mean. Well, we also have a food pantry. We have a pantry at our Centerville location. It's open twice a month. That's also online as well. So they can come to the food pantry, they can go online and sign up, or they can even just make a phone call. And if I can just give you the phone number here right online, I can. Right. On our, on our call here, they can call the 724-632-2190 phone number. Again, it's 724-632-21990. The extension for the senior boxes is 107. And the extension for the community outreach program is 1, 2, 4. And those. That phone number will get you somebody to help you get either a senior box or a community outreach box.

Amy Braun-Bostich: Now, do you have to provide documentation to qualify?

Athena Petrolias: I believe it's just a sign up and it's online. And I just, I do believe that they, I think the Senior Box program does. May require more, a little more documentation because it's it is a Pennsylvania operated program where I don't think the online program for the community outreach boxes is as intensive as the Senior Box program because there's a lot of accountability that goes back to the state and the numbers that we have to report back to them as far as the senior boxes are concerned.

Amy Braun-Bostich: Okay. So you had mentioned a couple different types of programs. The Senior Box program and then there's a summer nutrition program, the little MOOCHI program. And then there was another box program you mentioned. Can you tell us what the differences are between them?

Athena Petrolias: Well, sure. I mean the Pennsylvania Senior Box program is for seniors and they've partnered at the state level with DoorDash to make sure that some of those boxes are delivered to the seniors via DoorDash. So there's a state relationship between DoorDash and the senior Box program. So if you're a senior, then you would qualify for the Pennsylvania Senior Box program.

Amy Braun-Bostich: What's the qualifying age there?

Athena Petrolias: You know what? I don't know. That's not my forte. That would be a Heidi question. So I don't have the actual age. I don't.

Amy Braun-Bostich: No worries. I was just wondering have that one.

Athena Petrolias: I'm not as knowledgeable about that program as I am my own. So, I do not know what the qualifying age is. I don't know. So I would probably, once again, I would probably check our website and or make that phone call for the Senior Box program. And the community outreach program is more for the families who are having insecurity as a family or as a single or as a couple where you would just go online and you can stop at any one of the locations outlined that are on our website. I know Avella has one California. There's different distribution centers from 9am until 11am on certain days. There's a calendar right on the website where you can just take a look and see where the closest location would be to receive a senior box would be.

And then the summer nutrition program is a program that came out of the libraries at the end of each school year. The kids are at the local libraries. And so it was a brainchild of one of our staff here that said, well, let's get some snacks to the libraries. We'll get some kids to volunteer to read to kids. And we have been delivering food to the library programs over the summer so the kids can get some foods to eat while they're at the library getting some reading done or being read to by volunteers in the community and or the library. And that was very successful the last two years. I think I had some statistics on that one. I believe we had. We went from four libraries in 2023 to eight libraries in Washington County.

Approximately 500 kids a week for 13 weeks this past summer. So. So we're looking at doing it again. We're on the. We're looking. We're just right now in the planning stages of what we're going to do for the summer nutrition program at the libraries locally this year. So that's a work in progress.

Amy Braun-Bostich: Yeah, that's a great idea too. And it gets kids to go to libraries.

Athena Petrolias: Yeah, it worked out really well. We had some nice. Some extra snacks from the school year and some additional funding. We were able to supply some more snack bags for those kids. And then the little MOOCHI program is geared towards the elementary schools in Washington county in this past year. Well, last. Last school year we packed approximately 7,700amonth. And this year we've raised that to about 8,300amonth. Have been packed by local companies like yours and companies around here in the Canonsburg South Point area. And we're very, very blessed with some. All the foods are purchased with donation dollars and all the bags are packed by volunteers. So thank you to your company for coming in and taking care of us.

Amy Braun-Bostich: Oh, it's our pleasure. Have you seen an increase in families in need during different periods of time like the holiday season or other areas?

Athena Petrolias: Yeah, we've actually seen. According, I talked to our CEO this morning. I was telling him about this PO today and he without hesitation said that they have. There's always a need and it just happens to be there were that the demand is up 30% this year because of cost of food increases and the cost of fuel. So we've. He's seen a 30% increase this year as a. As. As compared to other years in the need for. For food. For food insecure families. Yeah.

Amy Braun-Bostich: How often can people get a box of food? Is it once a month?

Athena Petrolias: It is. It's a pretty big box. It is once a month. I do believe that there are. If there's an emergency situation that the food bank would be able to step in and help out as well too. So, we're here. That's what we're here for. And the online. The online process is very painless. And so is a phone call if you don't want to go online and do that, which is good.

Amy Braun-Bostich: I think I read somewhere that you distributed 110,607 pounds of food in 2023.

Athena Petrolias: Well, that. Actually, that number I was talking to my boss about, I said, where did you get that number? Because that's not what we count. That's actually. He said that particular number was just foods distributed. Distributed to other entities.

Amy Braun-Bostich: Oh, okay.

Athena Petrolias: So, I have. I think I sent you that one little program there.

Amy Braun-Bostich: Yeah, I didn't. It was.

Athena Petrolias: Yeah. Our. We service approximately this year. In 2024, we serviced approximately 1900 households a month with the community outreach program. That's what the. With the. With the. The co. We call it the boxes that families can get those from the distribution centers for senior boxes. We have distributed 1850 senior boxes in 2024, I think.

Amy Braun-Bostich: Yeah. And that's a huge increase from 2022.

Athena Petrolias: Just two years earlier, about 200 more. More, more seniors were distributed. And as far as the pounds of food, our delivery team was here this morning, and they said, no. Well, they have accumulated 1.5 million pounds of food is really more of the number that we're looking at each year. As far as the amount of food that we distribute each year, that's a lot of. That's a lot of food. It's a lot of food. It is. So, the holidays, we try and, you know, do the holiday. I know that there's lots of turkey programs and ham programs across the region. This particular year, we focused on two holidays. That was Thanksgiving and Christmas, I believe it was. And it was 1700 families. In 2024, we. We focused on providing some holiday. Some holiday distribution to those families. That.

Amy Braun-Bostich: So, you cut that two, from three holidays. I noticed in 2023, there were 3,200 families.

Athena Petrolias: Well, I think what. Well, that particular. That was. We included a spring distribution. What we did with that is we took. I believe that they added more produce in the. They. They spread that out. That was. That was counted because we counted an additional holiday. So what happened was a lot of the, the distribution was enhancing what we currently were delivering that included more produce to the families that were receiving those holiday baskets. But they. We. We added to our community outreach boxes, we took the dollars rather than giving a ham, we added that to. We took those dollars and spread them out as opposed to just doing it for that one holiday distribution.

Amy Braun-Bostich: So other programs that you have are Healthy Habits, Thrift Market, and the Farm. Do you want to explain what those programs are?

Athena Petrolias: Well, sure. Now. So, we've had some changes. We did add. Right at our Centerville location, we added a food pantry right in the heart of our Centerville facility. And there was A thrift store. And we. Because we added the pantry, the thrift store is no longer in operation. We did some program changes. So now we're emphasizing. We're trying to get, you know, our emphasis is food, and we're trying to get as much food to our clients as possible. So there was a thrift store, and that thrift store is no longer in operation. The food pantry is right in the same location where the. Right next door to where the thrift store was. And the farm behind the Centerville location is a 22 acre farm. There is an AP area back there. I know a lot of the school districts do use that as a.

Athena Petrolias: As a field trip. And our farmer, we have Farmer Joe, who does some produce, and we do try and grow some of our own produce. It's very labor intensive, very costly. So I, we do have a, we do have an operating farm. It's just not as productive as we'd like it to be. And that is part of our property in Centerville. Oh, the healthy habits. We always try to do some programming and the little MOOCHI program. Having the little MOOCHI app where the kids can use their phones or their computers to take pictures of their food and have the AI let them know if it's healthy or not. And they get little strawberries that show that the students are eating a healthier food. One of my, I have it on my phone and it reminds me to eat lunch.

 It reminds me to eat dinner. And my challenge for the other day, I was showing one of my, one of our volunteers how it works. And they said, well, what's your challenge for today? I said, it's telling me I have to eat noodles today. So, challenges was to eat noodles yesterday for my little MOOCHI program. So that has been a lot of fun. A team out of CMU designed that in during COVID It was actually a partnership between CMU and UPMC and the food bank stepped in and said, you know, this would be really cool for elementary school kids and trying to get them some food, snacks, and. And the little MOOCHI program was launched, which is really cool.

Amy Braun-Bostich: Yeah, that's great. Okay, so what are your biggest revenue sources?

Athena Petrolias: Well, we, you know, we're always happy to receive donations. We've had very. We've had some very generous donors, either individuals, companies, corporations, memorials. We are very happy to receive monetary donations. We did have a very big event this past fall. We had what was called the Taste Tour of Washington County. We were set up at the casino, at the Hollywood Casino. We had The Tamburitzans performing. And we had restaurants and wineries and distilleries from all over Washington county sharing some of their goods with us along with the jazz band. Later on in the evening, we had a auction, a silent auction, and we had a flower bar. It was just a wonderful event. We had four or five hundred people come into the casino to our event and that was a huge success with plans to looking at it again for next year.

Athena Petrolias: So that was a nice way for us to share what we do with the community and community coming together to help fund our food programs, to make sure our community has food security. And of course, you know, we always do our drives. We do our holiday, and we put the flyers out there and saying, help support your food bank. There's one that just went out for Valentine's Day to some local addresses asking for. We had a matching anonymous donor who said if you raise 50,000, they would match the 50. So, we're still waiting to see how much comes in from that one. So, all of our foods are purchased with donation dollars. 

Amy Braun-Bostich: That's great. Now the state doesn't help at all. Or they do help.

Athena Petrolias: I. I know that we have a new partnership with the Pittsburgh Food bank this year. We did sign on. The senior box program is funded by via Pennsylvania. The little MOOCHI program is funded 100% through donation. I do know that for sure. As far as some of the grants that we've written, I know there's grants that have been written and received. So, a lot of that is also part of the food bank workings. I don't know all of the ins and outs. My little niche is the little MOOCHI program trying to get schools. So, I know there's a whole team of people who are working on grants and funding through the state and all that kind of good stuff. I just want to make sure that families and kids get the foods that they need. Yeah, that's really important to all of us.

Amy Braun-Bostich: After listening to the interview, if somebody wanted to volunteer to pack boxes or host a food drive or donate, what would they do?

Athena Petrolias: Well, my number's on the. My numbers, my contact is on there. We do post both the South Point location where we pack MOOCHIs and the Centerville location are on the website. Centerville location has regular packing dates each month they set up. Ours is a little bit more seasonal because of the school year. Right now, we have two packing dates. One for this Thursday and one for next Thursday that's open. I think I have a few Slots open for that. They're always welcome to call us. Always welcome to check the website under volunteer, and you'll see two places where there's signups to be able to volunteer. If you want to bring a group in, just give me a call. My phone number is on the website. My email is on the website. So happy to. To oblige. We love our volunteers. They're.

They're consistent and they're just so loyal. We have really loyal volunteers and very blessed and that we have sometimes more volunteers than we have food to pack, which is awesome. Yeah.

Amy Braun-Bostich: Yeah. That's a great problem to have.

Athena Petrolias: It's an awesome problem to have. As you know, Washington county was a real blessing coming here from Allegheny County and seeing like was happening there and coming here. Wow. Just a whole different community of kindness here. Just there's actually a group we work with that's part of a kindness committee. We partner with the United Way during the spring and during the fall with them as well. So, we're very blessed with some, just amazing, consistent volunteers.

Amy Braun-Bostich: That's great to hear. Thank you. I really appreciate this discussion and the information about food insecurity and explaining more about the commitment to help decrease food insecurity. And we appreciate you joining us today.

Athena Petrolias: Thank you. We're just grateful to have you guys supporting us and you volunteering and allowing us to talk a little bit about the needs of your local food bank. You know, give to your food bank.

Amy Braun-Bostich: Yeah. We're really looking forward to coming in the spring again.

Athena Petrolias: I would love having you, I believe. I think you're going out to Centerville. I think our packing for this. I think you're going out. That's, that's cool. That's a cool place.

Amy Braun-Bostich: Yeah, we've been there several times. So, the warehouse is not as warm as well.

Athena Petrolias: Yeah, it'll be warm in the spring.

Amy Braun-Bostich: Okay. Thank you again. I really appreciate it. And thank you all for listening to this episode. We hope you enjoyed the discussion today. And if you're interested in learning about Food Helpers, you can go to their website, FoodHelpers.org, and then you can also find us through Facebook, LinkedIn, YouTube, or our website, Braun-Bostitch.com. Take care!