Ohio Hunger Task Force
William (Bill) Dolan, Executive Director
181 E. Livingston Ave.
Columbus, Ohio
(614) 341-7700
(614) 341-7701 fax

This 26-year-old anti-poverty leadership organization, a key participant in FRAC and longtime ally of World Hunger Year, is unusual for a statewide group, Bill Dolan says, because it is "BOTH fish and fowl." While many statewide anti-hunger organizations provide either direct service or advocacy, OHTF is unusual in that it does both.

Its advocacy activity includes both educational and policy work at the state and local level. In the past, its primary direct-service focus has been as administrator of the U.S. Department of Agriculture's childhood feeding program for family day-care providers, in which role it channels and administers funds for nutrition for some 2,000 family day-care providers in 55 Ohio counties, feeding nearly 10,000 youngsters daily. Coming this fall, it is taking on the additional challenge of offering similar funds to multi-lingual, multi-cultural day-care facilities serving Russian, Asian and Hispanic immigrant communities; there are reportedly 27 separate Asian dialects spoken by immigrants in the Columbus area alone. OHTF has also conducted a pilot program in Lorain, Ohio, near Cleveland, focusing on the development of about 30 small family day-care operations. Using small grants and heavy mentoring, the purpose of this program is twofold: Boost community development by encouraging the development of family day-care centers as small businesses, and through these operations increase the availability of affordable day care.

Another program, not new to OHTF but expanded dramatically in the past year or so, is emerging as a potential model for national replication. By providing technical assistance and encouragement, the organization is encouraging dozens of service providers in low-income neighborhoods to add on after-school nutrition and structured education and recreation programs using funding from USDA's Outside School Hours Care Center Program.

This program covers the full cost of an after-school meal for very poor children, with smaller subsidies for children from more well-off families; it requires that providers offer not only a nutritious meal but some kind of education or recreation, a provision that OHTF implements as a highly structured two-hour session featuring a variety of activities presented by community groups ranging from the Chef and the Child Foundation and the Boy Scouts to the Columbus Clippers baseball team. Partnerships, both financial and voluntary, include such major corporations as Borden Corp. and Bank One, and such small businesses as plasma donor centers and check-cashing firms in the inner city. This additional income stream allows the provision of special events and family nights for parents and older kids; the USDA in its dubious wisdom denies meals through this program to anyone over 12.

A total of 23 sites feeding 1,000 children daily year-round are already on board, and Dolan says more than 80 more are on the waiting list. OHTF also has persuaded scholars at Ohio State University to devise a scientific measure that will not only count meals served but draw conclusions about the program's impact on related issues ranging from students' grades to the incidence of neighborhood vandalism. These measurements, when implemented, will provide powerful material for funders as well as media and policy makers.

Although the USDA after-school nutrition program is national and well-established, OHTF's approach to reaching out aggressively to the community and enlisting local corporations and institutions to help expand its reach is new and promising. (It is somewhat akin to the West Coast program "LA's Best," but differs in its focus on autonomous non-profits serving high-poverty neighborhoods; LA's Best works through the schools.)

Dolan is already working with an organization in Dayton to replicate the Columbus program there; it also appears to be highly replicable elsewhere.

OHTF's staff of 38 has a $1.5 million operating budget, with revenue primarily from United Way, corporate donors and foundations, and special events; it passes through $6.5 million in federal nutrition money each year. The afterschool component is quite modest, requiring the part-time attention of one staffer and about $60,000 in administrative costs to oversee distribution of about $250,000 in USDA money. As Dolan points out, as long as the program is limited to sites in which most of the recipients come from families that qualify for full reimbursement, the USDA reimbursement covers all costs with a slight surplus to help defray administrative expenses.

All the feature stories on @GRASS-ROOTS.ORG's pages are reported and written by Robin Garr, a prize-winning journalist who has visited more than 500 innovative grassroots programs in all 50 states since 1990.

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