Montgomery Community Media

Happy National Nutrition Month! This month is about focusing attention on the importance of making informed food choices and developing sound eating and physical activity habits. As Manna Food Center’s Nutrition Educator, one of the ways I reach our many clients with healthy tidbits is in our Notes from the Nutritionist series. This monthly publication, […]

Having worked at Manna eight months now, I’ve befriended Manna’s joyful, close-knit staff. On my first day as Nutrition Educator, nearly every welcoming handshake was accompanied by the almost regretful comment that I wouldn’t get to meet Miss Blanche today because she was off celebrating her birthday. Thus, “Miss Blanche” became a presence for me […]

Smart Sacks is a special program here at Manna Food Center. The program allows Manna to serve over 2100 Montgomery County students with supplemental weekend food. This school year, students noted some changes to the contents of their weekend bag: food in portions large enough to serve a family, more whole grains, and lower-sodium foods. […]

Author Jon J. Muth said, “It is easy to believe we are each waves and forget we are also the ocean.” Manna Food Center is a place where it’s hard to forget we are the ocean. We might want to just come to work, put lunch in the fridge, fold the umbrella, hang the coat, […]

  Manna’s Director of Nutrition Programs, Jenna Umbriac, recently shared a great article with  me about healthy shopping on a budget. A registered dietitian in New Jersey successfully shopped for a family of four–that’s 21 meals plus snacks–for $126. She used some important grocery shopping techniques we use here at Manna Food Center. In our […]

Manna Food Center opens at 8 a.m. At 7:15 a.m. in Gaithersburg, the cold sky promised rain, and the air chilled those exposed places on your neck and ears. Jackie, Manna’s Executive Director, arrived early to start her workday to find a woman waiting at the locked doors of Manna’s warehouse. At the height of […]

On Friday, I visited Oakland Terrace Elementary School in Silver Spring to speak with 85 second graders about hunger. The second graders at Oakland Terrace spent the past six weeks studying nutrition, and recently conducted a Healthy Cereal drive for Manna Food Center. Go second grade! In my visit, the 85 students and I discussed […]

I’ve got a birthday coming up, and I have noticed that as I get older I become more and more interested in history.  Maybe it is a sense of my own morality–the older you get the more your realize your time on this planet is limited. I also think that the longer you live the […]

In the last year, Manna served over 36,000 Montgomery County residents facing food insecurity. It is impossible to imagine distributing food to the children, seniors, and families of our community without the 32,000 volunteers (last year alone!) fostering Manna’s mission alongside our staff. Even on evenings, weekends and holidays, these gracious individuals donated 64,626 hours […]

Last week, while our Executive Director Jackie DeCarlo attended Maryland’s Hunger Action Symposium, the entire Nutrition Department (that’s Jenna Umbriac and little me) attended the Capital Area Food Bank’s Northern Virginia Hunger Summit: Love Food Hate Waste. In 2011 alone, Americans generated more than 36 million tons of food waste, with only four percent diverted […]