After more than a decade at the helm of Blue Ridge Area Food Bank, C-E-O Michael McKee will retire at the end of June. In this exit interview with WMRA’s Ayse Pirge, he looks back at his time at the food bank, and talks about current problems for the hunger relief network.
Michael McKee didn’t set out to become the head of a food bank.
MICHAEL MCKEE: I don’t know that anyone goes to college with the idea of working for a food bank. I certainly didn’t.
He says the seed was planted back in 1985, when he saw how much nonprofits could help people rebuild their lives.
MCKEE: And it was at that moment that I thought, this kind of work… the work in nonprofits is really what I want to do with my life.
McKee says that when the opportunity with the food bank came up, it really resonated with him because, even though he didn’t personally experience food insecurity, he was close enough to understand what it was like for the people around him growing up. He says finding his way to the Blue Ridge Area Food Bank, founded in 1981, was the best career move he’s ever made.
HATSY VALLAR: We’re very sorry to see him retire. Although he does deserve it… He has been really transformative for the food bank…
Hatsy Vallar is the chair of the food bank’s board of directors. She has worked closely with McKee as chair of the board, and says he brought in an emphasis on distributing nutritional food. As a result, she says the food that they’re delivering now is much better for clients.
The food bank is distributing a lot more fresh produce compared to when McKee started leading development and planning back in 2009. Around nine million pounds of fresh produce will be distributed this year to 25 counties and eight cities in our area, compared to about half a million 15 years ago. And McKee says that the quality of the food provided to those in need is strongly associated with diet-related diseases, such as diabetes.
MCKEE: And if we can improve one’s food security, or more specifically one’s nutritional security, then we have the opportunity to reduce the prevalence of these diseases that do affect people in or near poverty much more pervasively than the general population.
McKee joined the food bank at a challenging time, in 2009, when it found itself grappling with the effects of the Great Recession. Prior to that, the food bank had been serving more than 70,000 monthly visitors through its community partners. Three years later, by 2012, that number had jumped by nearly 70%, peaking at around 120,000 people. The next challenge was the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, when the need topped out at more than 140,000 monthly visitors. And the current numbers are even higher, driven by inflation and federal cuts to food aid.
MCKEE: Right now, we’re serving an average of 172,000… 20 percent more than at the very worst of a worldwide public health and economic crisis. And so you think about what that means not only to one nonprofit like the Blue Ridge Area Food Bank but more importantly to small nonprofits…
They posted their record number in October, when the food bank served, together with their partners, 192,000 people.
MCKEE: I don’t know what to say about that. Right? I mean, it is at such high, sustained levels that we’re not growing numb but it’s hard to think too much out into the future.
McKee says he’s deeply concerned, as are food bankers across the country, with what they see happening both in the rates of food insecurity and also the numbers of new guests that they’re serving -- people who are accessing food assistance for the first time. And he thinks the continuing increase in cost of living will fuel further growth in the rates of hunger.
McKEE: And in all of that I would say the government’s response has also been alarming. You know, you think about when there’s a natural disaster… or there’s an economic crisis… food banks and the federal government have always worked together…Well right now food insecurity is arguably worse than at any time since the 1960s. I mean think about it. We’re serving 100,000 people per month more than we were 15 years ago. And the government’s response is not to give us more food but to actually take food away.
He also points to President Trump’s massive budget bill, which would make severe cuts to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, which he believes would push a lot more people into food insecurity, and significantly increase the strain on food assistance networks around the country.
MCKEE: And I’m worried, as are our food bankers across the country, that the strain will be too great, and we’ll begin to see our network of community food providers begin to collapse.
McKee also points to another concern.
MCKEE: …What’s driving our urgency is the recognition that for the very first time in our history, food insecurity has no relationship with unemployment. Traditionally, unemployment would go up, food insecurity would go up, and we would see increased numbers of people seeking assistance. When unemployment came back down to more normal levels, food insecurity would come back down, utilization of our services would come back down…
He says that right now, even though we’re seeing unemployment rates at historically low levels of around four percent, the Blue Ridge Area Food Bank is serving record numbers of people each and every month. He says that’s a bright indicator that there is just too big of a gap between what people are earning and what it costs for them to pay for things like rent or put food on the table.
MCKEE: And this is no time to take food away. It’s time the government actually step up and do a little more as we all work together to figure out what the equilibrium needs to be and help families catch up so that they can fend for themselves.
McKee says we need to recognize that we are in a crisis, and to treat it like a crisis.
