The Cleveland Foodbank has launched a new strategic plan.  Together with the organization Feeding America, the Foobank plans to increase the number of meals served to 50 million annually by 2014.

Last year, the Foodbank served nearly 29 million meals, so you can see it’s an ambitious goal.  But Karen Pozna of the Foodbank tells me the need is there in Greater Cleveland.

Another ambitious goal of the Cleveland Foodbank is to increase the number of meals purchased through the SNAP (food stamp) program.  Staff is being hired for community outreach, to help ensure everyone who is eligible for the SNAP program takes advantage of it.

As of last year, Foodbank outreach efforts were good for 1.8 million meals.  The goal is to increase that number to 12.5 million meals annually purchased by food stamps.

Karen says the majority of funds are donated to the Foodbank during the holidays, but that the need exists all year, and is in fact more acute during the summer months, when children are no longer eating meals at school.