City Center Outreach Inc.

PROJECT PURPOSE

We are seeking strategic, catalytic funding for basic nutrition & food needs to address the acute challenges our population is facing. Due to the rapidly changing realties our community has faced and is facing, we need to continue to be poised and prepared to pivot to meet significant needs as they arise. To that end, we have already responded to food insecurities and food assistance needs at an increased level over the past 2 years. - We pivoted in March 2020 to effectively transition our food pantry and meal programs into an effective food assistance effort as part of our response to COVID -19. - We have provided almost 250,000 meals to the community since March 2020. - Our Nutrition Coordinator combined with our commitment to provide healthy, nutritious, dignified food assistance is making a huge difference in the lives of thousands of families. - We are continuing to provide adapted afterschool & summer programming throughout COVID-19 challenges. We believe, if we provide healthy, nutritious food options, both through household assistance and for students in our programs, surrounded by trusted adult leadership, that students and families from vulnerable communities will be more likely to experience lessened trauma from the Covid-19 pandemic by reducing food insecurity, forming healthy relationships, mitigating stressful situations, and receiving more proper nutrition resulting in better life outcomes. This funding will help us meet the acute, felt needs our community faces from food insecurity through providing meals to students, food boxes, groceries, healthy snacks, and other food assistance. Funding the components of this project will achieve significant impact on the lives of more 1500 children and youth. This would be catalyst investment in our services at a very critical time in an often over-looked community that needs this support greatly.

EVIDENCE

We consistently glean info from our students and adults who come to City Center for programs and services. While most of that feedback has been anecdotal, this Saturday, April 2, we will be conducting an updated needs assessment survey process. We believe this will confirm our anecdotal evidence from the past 6-12 mos. which has indicated an increasing need in our population due to their proximity to the poverty level (sometimes not eligible for as much as assistance as is needed because they are working but just at or barely above the threshold for assistance). We also track the number of people served / food distributed and the increased demand and numbers served is evidence for heightened needs since March 2020.

POPULATION DESCRIPTION

Due to the increased demand and need, we want to be able to increase our meals provided from 71,000 to 100,000 in 2022. Students, families, and individuals living in the surrounding communities of the City Center community center live where 50% of households have incomes below 60% of the area median gross income. This population will continue to receive food assistance in the form of groceries, meals, snacks, non-perishable items, groceries, fresh food, and other food support. We will continue to serve anyone who comes to us for assistance regardless of race, age, background, sexuality, gender, religion, and socio-economic status.

PERFORMANCE MEASURING

We track outputs and outcomes for our services. Data is collected on students enrolled in our programs, numbers of meals / snacks / food boxes / etc., and people served through food assistance in City Center and at our monthly outreach events. In 2021, we launched our outcomes measurement processes to start an entire system to collect data and provide analysis of this data to determine and track outcomes. We will continue to implement this system and collect information for both our outputs tracking and outcomes measuring throughout the duration of this project.

ONGOING INVESTMENT AMOUNT

$

ONGOING INVESTMENT DESCRIPTION

None

ONGOING INVESTMENT REQUIRED

Able to continue operation without additional funding from the State of Oklahoma