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Tarrant Area Food Bank receives $4,175 donation from Woodforest Charitable Foundation.

02-April, 2013

Tarrant Area Food Bank receives $4,175 donation from Woodforest Charitable Foundation.

Photo Caption:Presenting the check are: Front row - (L to R) Shelly Lynch, Director of Operations, Woodforest Charitable Foundation; Jason Stockton, Regional Manager, WNB; Stephen Raeside, Grant Manager, Tarrant Area Food Bank; David Gottlieb, Board Member, Woodforest Charitable Foundation; Kim Marling, Vice President & Executive Director, Woodforest Charitable Foundation. Back row- (L to R) James Larabee, Regional Manager, WNB; Jonathan Craig, WNB Branch Manager, Cleburne, TX; Oscar Mathis, WNB Branch Manager, North Richland Hills, TX; Charity Fincher, WNB Branch Manager, Mansfield, TX; Steven Loth, WNB Branch Manager, Fort Worth, TX; Jamie Vasquez, WNB Branch Manager, Arlington, TX; Natasha Goldberg, WNB Branch Manager, Gainesville, TX; Cassidy Marsh, WNB Branch Manager, Lake Worth, TX; Robert Marsh, WNB Branch Manager, Keller, TX; Trudy McCalister , WNB Branch Manager, Arlington, TX and Ruben Rodriguez, WNB Branch Manager, Fort Worth, TX.

Tarrant Area Food Bank
Fort Worth, TX – On a continual basis Woodforest National Bank employees perform a multitude of fundraising events benefitting the Woodforest Charitable Foundation.  Both Woodforest National Bank and Woodforest Charitable Foundation are committed to making a positive impact in the Tarrant Area Food Bank, which recently received a $4,175 donation, from the Woodforest Charitable Foundation.

Tarrant Area Food Bank serves people seeking food assistance including low-wage workers and their families, senior citizens living on fixed incomes, victims of family violence and of disasters, the chronically ill, the severely disabled, the homeless, the under-employed and the temporarily and long-term unemployed.

The food bank provides food to church pantries, senior citizen centers, emergency shelters for abuse victims and homeless families, soup kitchens, after-school programs, low-income child care centers, Kids Cafes, BackPacks for Kids, rehabilitation facilities and other social service centers.

Children that eat in Kids Cafés or that participate in BackPacks for Kids weekend feeding program have more energy and earn better grades according to teachers and parents. Families eat healthier diets with fresh foods from the Mobile Pantry and tips learned in nutrition classes.

Recently I visited a Fort Worth elementary school that participates in BackPacks for Kids. I got there early and met with the Counselor. I asked her all the standard questions like: Are the backpacks being stored in a secure location? Are you keeping the students identification confidential? Okay, great! I began to help her get all the sacks into the backpacks which were numbered. Each student had 1 or 2 bags…with the exception of one student. She says to me, “this boy has 3 backpacks; there are 9 children in his family.” I stood there for a minute quickly trying to process what it would be like to try and feed 9 children. My 11 year old is already eating me out of house and home! After we were done loading the bags into the backpacks I walked around to the empty classrooms to drop them off so they would be there waiting for the kids on Friday morning. I went into a classroom, the one with the boy with 8 siblings. His teacher had her music playing as she was entering grades into the computer and the Counselor asked her to tell me about the boy and how his behavior has changed, if at all, since receiving the backpacks. She told me that prior to being in the program it was difficult for this boy to concentrate and working in small groups was almost impossible. This class is allowed to bring a snack to eat in the classroom and this boy would have to sit there and watch his friends eat while he had no food on his desk. Since receiving this food his attention span has gotten so much better. One word she used to describe him was relaxed. “He is so much more relaxed now that he doesn’t have to worry about being hungry.” She said during snack one day the boy had three different snack items on his desk. All these items came from the backpacks he takes home on Friday’s. So this food is not only lasting throughout the weekend but also during the week for snack time. I then asked the teacher what grade she taught, her answer…First Grade. My heart sank that a boy in First Grade, 7 or 8 years old was having to worry about food for him and his 8 siblings and it was this First Grader who was taking home food to help out his family. What a responsibility for any child to have to take on. This however is still a touchdown for us as we are helping to shape this child’s future and letting him know that there are people on his team. – Sarah Centeno, Food for Kids Coordinator

For more information call 817-258-8100 or visit www.tafb.org.

Woodforest Charitable Foundation
The Woodforest Charitable Foundation was created by Woodforest National Bank in 2005 as a direct result of its desire to support and invest in the communities in which it serves.  The Foundation is committed to assisting those in need, enriching lives and communities through dedicated leadership and faithful administration by providing funding to qualifying 501(c)(3) charities. For additional information regarding the Woodforest Charitable Foundation, call (832) 375-CARE (2273) or visit the foundation’s website at www.woodforestcharitablefoundation.org.

Woodforest National Bank
Celebrating 32 years of service and ranked among the top earning banks in the United States, the Woodforest family of banks currently has assets of approximately $3.7 billion and services more than 837,000 customers with branches in excess of 760 throughout seventeen states:  Texas, Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maryland, Mississippi, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Virginia and West Virginia.  For information about Woodforest National Bank, please call 832-375-2000 or visit the bank’s website at www.woodforest.com.