UCHRA’s long running commodity program will soon be contracted out to local food banks.
UCHRA Executive Director Mark Farley told the Policy Board Wednesday the commodity program required additional funding from the agency to operate. Farley said the state made the recommendation as a logical step to better serve the people.
“From a business perspective, I can’t argue with it because I think it does makes sense just to contract with the one agency to do all the work,” Farley said. “Now would I love it to be us? Yes. But I’ll tell you what, Second Harvest has the ability to do stuff that we can’t do.”
Farley said Second Harvest offers a larger variety of food, including meat and fresh vegetables that UCHRA is incapable of providing. Farley said employees were notified Wednesday afternoon of the changes.
Farley said he will present the proposal before the executive board later this month.
“I talked with all our county coordinators [Wednesday] morning,” Farley said. “Our gut is at the end of the day, citizens of the Upper Cumberland are going to be better served because of this. And I think it’s one of those things, I think us as an agency, we have to realize that. We stepped back and said, ‘Alright, somebody can do a better job,’ and we need to support them in doing that.”
Farley said he understands concerns about the change, but urges people to recognize this change is positive. Farley said the change will not be immediate, however, as the current commodity contract with the UCHRA expires in September.
“We will continue distributing on as we have, every two months in all of our counties,” Farley said. “I don’t know who’s slated for September, but whenever we get through those, we believe those will be the last two that we administer.”
Farley said there are four major food banks in Tennessee, and Second Harvest serves most Upper Cumberland.
