“First Things First … (helped) thousands of families put food

 on the table.”

In Spring 2009, My Sister, My Friend – a community based social service agency in South Phoenix – was in danger of closing its food program. The site already was providing 500 food boxes per month and 370 hot meals per day to struggling families, but demand was quickly outpacing its limited resources.  

“We were getting near summer, which is when many young children don’t have access to food programs they can get at school,” Executive Director Ann Glover said. “With no new funding coming in and demand growing, we were getting ready to stop providing food.”

A $100,000 grant from the First Things First Emergency Response Program allowed the program to continue operating in the late spring and through the summer.

“We were able to leverage our relationships with food providers and instead of the 2,500 food boxes we thought we’d provide, we actually provided about 7,100,” Glover said, adding that all the boxes went to families that had at least one child under five in the household.

“First Things First helped us stay open, but what they really did was help thousands of families put food on the table,” Glover said. “When you are struggling with everything else, it’s really nice to not have to worry about where your kids’ next meal is going to come from.”