Leading The Way: Amber Stott
I’ve learned that what I’m built for is this very grassroots work. I’m meant to serve the community. My best days are the days when I get to collaborate with fellow nonprofit and community leaders to design creative solutions that have a larger impact in the world …
Initially, Food Literacy Center CEO Amber Stott wasn’t expecting the seismic changes that came as a result of COVID-19. During the beginning of March, she and her team were focused on hygiene and making sure the kids they work with washed their hands. And then the school district closed the schools ...
After the shelter-in-place order was issued, what did you do first?
First, I called my board members to talk about sending my staff home to work. One of my board members handed me a telework policy, and we talked through how Food Literacy Center should implement it.
I knew people were hoarding food, and that it costs well over $200 to fill a grocery cart. My staff doesn’t make a lot of money. Some of them are at high risk of complications if they catch COVID-19. I wanted to make sure they were safe and had food so I provided a $100 bonus to each staff member so they could buy groceries.
On Monday morning, three days after the schools closed, I asked my staff to brainstorm what we should do and what skills we have that are still relevant. I already knew what I wanted to do but I didn’t want to just tell them. I wanted the team to help get there with me because I needed them focused, and I wanted their buy-in. And, I wanted them to be excited about being part of the solution to what was happening in the world.
As a team, we put together a list of what we know how to do that makes us relevant to this weird crisis. We know how to cook; we teach; we know how to use pantry staples like beans and rice; we know about food safety, and people are really worried about that right now. And we have access to the Food Bank.
We agreed our first pivot would be to put all of our curriculum online. The following week, we were filming our first cooking demonstration for the kids.
I signed up to help serve school lunch. I needed to be out there in order to see, feel and understand the community that had just been taken away from us. The place we serve. We don’t serve internet-land; we serve real people in the real world.
I wrote a succession plan because what if I die? Then I wrote a short-term plan for May, June and July. We couldn’t plan beyond that.
We decided to proceed with Big Day of Giving. We didn’t know how to ask for money, but I knew we couldn’t not ask for money. We did wellness checks with our donors. For the next month, we called and emailed donors, asking “How are you doing?” And we wrote grants like madmen because we had no idea what was going to happen with our usual funding sources. We were applying for everything we could. It was a lot of moving really fast and staying focused on what we could focus on. That was the early days.
What was the next pivot you made?
A few weeks in, I started getting antsy. We had lost connection with everyone. We didn’t know what programs were up and running or who was doing what. Our nonprofit partners had changed what they were doing, and everybody had gone dark. We no longer understood the world. I started calling groups of nonprofits, saying “Can we get a joint call? Can we talk to each other about what we’re doing? What’s happening with the food system? What’s happening with farmers? What services are out there? What’s missing? What’s broken?”
One of the schools we serve had identified 30 families that couldn’t get to food distribution because they had no transportation. We volunteered to help. We know how to coordinate volunteers. We know food safety. We’re a Food Bank partner. Then, the Director of Nutrition Services in the Sacramento City Unified School District reached out and offered, “If we pay for the food, would you be interested in doing some kind of box?” Everything took off from there. We got our curriculum into Google classrooms through the principals of the schools we work with. Through the after-school programs, we got on Zoom classrooms with the kids to do healthy snack time or read them a food literacy book. We put together weekly veggie boxes with recipes for our kids. We had a COVID food safety protocol that made it safer for the volunteers, the kids and the families getting the food. We brought an expertise to the table that was needed.
During normal times, we run one program. Rinse repeat. Rinse repeat. Now, we’re assembling and delivering family meal kits over here; we’re creating kids’ curriculum over there; we’re demonstrating online recipes over here. We launched a new program that leverages our Food Literacy Academy (where we train community members to be food geniuses) training youth in the Franklin Boulevard district in partnership with a local restaurant. We’re working with a restaurant at a time when the restaurants really need support. We chose a restaurant in a neighborhood that’s a food desert with high rates of diet-related disease to see if we could improve the health of their community by changing their menu. Can we deliver an economic benefit by demonstrating that eating healthy can also lift up a restaurant? We’re responding where we see need and where our expertise will make a difference.
What had you positioned to create so many partnerships and launch so many programs so quickly?
One of my mentors told me years ago that you have to read the newspaper every day to understand where your work fits into the bigger story of what’s happening in your community. I have found over and over throughout my career that understanding your world and what’s going on around you will allow you to see the linkages and create the connections you need to be successful. That’s what’s allowed us to take advantage of the good that’s happening during a bad time. Everything we’ve been able to do during the pandemic comes from being out in the community doing work that matters.
Part of this is also the funders. There’s been a shift in the last decade of funders wanting to be more involved in their communities, to know the nonprofits they’re serving and to introduce those nonprofits to each other. When the pandemic hit, those funders made new money available and circled back to good ideas that had already been proposed. These grants are all partnership-based. Think about our recipe kits .. we need the involvement of the school principals, nutrition services, the after-school programs, local farms, the Food Bank. Partnership and collaboration are key.
What were some of your goals during this time?
–To continue meeting the needs of the kids and families we serve.
–To keep my staff intact. We applied for a Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) loan right away. We also have a reserve that’s allowed me to make decisions with confidence rather than fear. I’ve certainly let fear seep in at times but on the whole, I’ve been able to make healthy decisions knowing that we have that cushion.
–To be empathetic towards my staff and build better coping skills. I’ve been running, and I’ve dug into self-care which has definitely helped me be better at all of this.
What has surprised you?
The way our mission has expanded in unexpected ways. We’re staying in our lane, but we’re running more programs and a wider variety. The skills we’ve developed in the last decade are of value to other nonprofits because more people are now feeding families. We have tools we can share with others to expand the number of people getting out in the world to help. We’re building community boots on the ground. We also have new nonprofit partners that include more social workers and counselors. It’s expanding the way we work with the families we serve.
What have you learned from this experience so far?
I’ve learned that what I’m built for is this very grassroots work. I’m meant to serve the community. My best days are the days when I get to collaborate with fellow nonprofit and community leaders to design creative solutions that have a larger impact in the world. I want to make sure people don’t forget that when the world opens back up and returns to normal. Black Lives Matter. Public health matters. If we don’t tie these narratives together to what’s happening in our world today, people won’t have learned anything when we return to normal.
Amber Stott is CEO and chief food genius of Food Literacy Center, a nonprofit that inspires elementary kids in low-income schools to eat their vegetables and teaches them healthy habits that will last a lifetime. Amber is the creator of the California-wide Food Literacy Month and a food writer. She's been named a "Food Revolution Hero" by the Jamie Oliver Food Foundation, one of Food Tank's 20 Innovators Protecting the Planet and a TEDx Sacramento Changemaker Fellow.