Crossroads Community Services

Programs: Food distribution programin 2017, crossroads distributed more than 2. 3 million pounds of nutritious food to 11,056 individuals in dallas county and mabank, texas (enough food for families to prepare approximately 1,920,000 balanced meals). This saved clients $4. 6m in household food costs - more than $1,000 per household. Considering 55% of crossroads' clients earn less than $12,000 per year, this is a substantial amount of money that can be used for other important household expenses rather than food. Crossroads' food distribution program combats a growing and real problem food insecurity and the rising incidence of obesity that disproportionately affects low income families. Food insecurity occurs when an individual has inconsistent access to adequate food due to lack of financial and other resources. In dallas county, approximately 18% of residents or 451,950 individuals, meet this troubling definition. Crossroads strives to efficiently meet the basic food needs of as many of those individuals as possible with an in-house food pantry and a network of over 60 community distribution partners (cdps). All clients served by crossroads' in-house pantry and cdps are low income individuals whose household income is less than or equal to 185% of the federal poverty level (income is self-reported by clients). Even though it is difficult to measure the complete impact of an individual organization's food distribution program, crossroads strives to evaluate and measure its effectiveness through the collection of demographic, health, mental and emotional well-being, program participation, financial, and behavioral data from its clients. With the assistance of research partners ut southwestern medical center of dallas, ut dallas, university of dallas, university of north texas, and the ut health science center of houston this data is analyzed to better understand the broader impact among low-income populations. The unique nature of this data has even garnered interest from researchers in china and the united kingdom. This data has shown that when a cdp distributes food directly in their neighborhood, clients are served more efficiently and effectively. When a new cdp opens in a neighborhood, existing ccs clients living within 2km of the new site increase their visiting frequency by 4. 4%. This is likely due to the reduced travel costs necessary to obtain food and also because the cdp model involves a pre-commitment mechanism whereby clients enroll to receive food each month rather than coming on a drop-in basis. Research data has also shown that crossroads plays an important role in the social services safety net. Research partner dr. Xia si's (university of texas dallas) study has found that crossroads helped fill the void once a women infant and children (wic) recipient became ineligible for benefits due to the child's age. Wic recipients were 25% more likely to visit crossroads' pantry or a cdp the month after losing benefits. The food crossroads provides offsets 50 to 94% of the lost wic benefits. The impact of the food distribution program can also be illustrated through the eyes of crossroads clients. One client, maria, explained why she came into the food pantry for the first time in two years. She and her husband have three school age kids (ages 6, 12, and 14) and have struggled to feed the children, especially in the summer months when they do not have access to the meals they typically enjoy in the school cafeteria. Replacing these meals was difficult for maria when it was compounded with her husband's declining income from his landscaping work. She had to make difficult decisions with the limited income purchasing smaller amounts of food to make ends meet. When maria finally ran out of food in her pantry, she turned to crossroads for assistance. Her shelves were bare there were no canned goods, fresh produce, not even rice (a normal a go-to staple in her pantry). Knowing that she had to do something to help her hungry children, maria used part of her only remaining cash to buy gas and visit crossroads. With the help of volunteers and staff, maria left with almost 200 pounds of food! Enough to make several meals and help her through this stressful time. Like many of crossroads' pantry clients, maria only comes when she is in dire need of assistance when her pantry is empty and she has no money to purchase food for her children. In general, crossroads' food distribution program achieves the following outcomes: 1) clients spend less time and resources traveling to multiple pantries to gather food; 2) families living in food deserts have easy access to substantial amounts of vegetables, fruits, proteins, grains, and dairy to prepare balanced meals; 3) limited financial resources of the household become available to pay other significant expenses such as childcare, medical bills, or rent. Crossroads community services' food distribution program is an innovative, research focused program. A registered dietitian with 30 years of experience helped develop the crossroads nutrition-based food selection systeman algorithm that helps match the kinds and amounts of food received to the age, gender, and activity level of each household member. In addition, crossroads' pioneered a hub-and-spoke food distribution model where crossroads serves as the hub and cdps serve as the spokes. The organizations that make up crossroads' cdp network include community centers, retirement centers, places of worship, dallas housing authority apartment complexes, and agencies. This model allows these varied organizations to distribute substantial amounts of nutritious food with the people they serve without having to meet the compliance standards required of a full-fledged north texas food bank (ntfb) food pantry. Crossroads has the infrastructure, staff, consulting registered dietitian, and partnership with the ntfb. Cdps have the facility, vehicles, labor, passion and commitment to nourish their neighbors who have a chronic need for food. Cdps have reduced a client's average round-trip distance to the pantry from 15 to 3. 2 miles, saving them valuable time and money. In 2015, ntfb incorporated crossroads' hub-and-spoke food distribution model into their 10-year strategic expansion plan for their 13-county area. While there are currently 265 ntfb pantries and 100+ other organizations that report to be operating some type of food pantry in dallas county, crossroads' approach is unique for the following reasons:1) the use of the dietary guidelines for americans to drive food distribution2) distribution of more nutritious food per person per visit than many other pantries (approximately 100 pounds of food for a family of four)3) the use of the cdp network to leverage community resources to lower cost per person (65% of the food crossroads distributed in 2017 went through the cdp network)4) the use of collaboration and leverage of existing community resources to increase efficiency 5) the use of a joint client database throughout the cdp network to reduce potential duplication of service within dallas countycrossroads community services also believes being inclusive and equitability serving all clients that need food assistance. All volunteers and staff assisting clients must go through training, which includes the topics of empathy and inclusion, as well as civil rights training and reporting that is required for all feeding america network providers.

clothing distributionadditionally, crossroads distributes gently used clothing at our in-house pantry. In 2017 our pantry clients selected 78,730 articles of clothing, saving them approximately $472,000 based on average thrift store prices. Through our partnership with the stewpot, 90-100 homeless individuals visit our clothing closet each week. Last year they selected a total of 34,600 articles of gently used clothing (total includes new socks and underwear). In addition to food and clothing, we also provide blankets, sheets, pillows, bedspreads, towels, and small household goods for our pantry clients that include previously homeless individuals who now have a home.