Updated at 5 p.m. to add remarks from Heather Bois Bruskin, Montgomery County Director of Office of Food Systems Resilience
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After 11 years leading the largest community-based organization striving to end hunger in Montgomery County, Manna Food Center CEO Jackie DeCarlo is retiring.
The Kensington Heights resident talked with MCM about Manna and hunger in one of the richest counties in the United States.
DeCarlo is most proud of Manna’s neighbor to neighbor approach, enabling county residents to help each other through food drives, volunteerism and donations. She thanked those who work or volunteer for Manna as well as the numerous community and faith-based organizations that always step up, she said.
“Manna was founded by the community and was founded for the community.” It is less like a charity than “an organization focused on being just to one and other,” she said.
Inflation, wages that don’t keep up with the cost of living and the end of safety nets established during the pandemic are all factors in poverty, she said.
In the immediate future, DeCarlo intends to relax with family, preferably at the Jersey shore. But don’t count her completely out. DeCarlo intends to continue stepping up for county residents in some way.
Heather Bois Bruskin, Montgomery County Director of Office of Food Systems Resilience, has worked alongside DeCarlo in the fight against food insecurity.
“Jackie has brought over ten years of visionary, collaborative, and strategic leadership to our local food community, engaging in systems-shifting advocacy at the local, state, and federal levels and contributing her time and expertise to strengthen the nonprofit sector and address community issues well beyond the food sector,” Briskin said in an email to MCM.
“Under her leadership, Manna Food Center launched a wide array of innovative strategies to build root-causes work and systems-based thinking into Manna’s mission and services, establishing one of the County’s first “choice pantries,” retrofitting a school bus to provide mobile food education and access, and building partnerships with farms, organics recycling entrepreneurs, and local small businesses. Though I will greatly miss our close collaboration, Jackie’s many contributions to Montgomery County will have a lasting positive impact on the health of our residents and resilience of our community for years to come.”
