How Robin Raxlin Gormley Of Jewish Family Service of Greater Dallas Is Helping To Address The Growing Challenge On Food Insecurity
An Interview With Martita Mestey
While there have been some shifts in the business world with corporate social responsibility, it would be great to continue to see corporations have a stronger commitment to investing locally. These larger operations can help solve a lot of issues pertaining to hunger and economic inequality through time, talent, and treasure.
Civic leaders should look not only at the food, but the channels of accessing services and barriers that limit a person’s access to safe, nutritious food at home — eg: transportation, money for gas, home food storage (refrigeration, heating), etc. There are plenty of both basic and systemic issues to food accessibility.
In many parts of the United States, there is a crisis of people having limited reliable access to a sufficient quantity of affordable, nutritious food. As prices rise, this problem will likely become more acute. How can this problem be solved? Who are the leaders helping to address this crisis?
In this interview series, we are talking to leaders who are helping to address the increasing problem of food insecurity who can share the initiatives they are leading to address and solve this problem.
As a part of this series, we had the pleasure of interviewing Robin Raxlin Gormley, senior director of special programs, hunger relief at Jewish Family Service of Greater Dallas.
Robin Raxlin Gormley, senior director of special programs, hunger relief at Jewish Family Service of Greater Dallas has over 14 years of experience fighting food insecurity. Under her leadership, the JFS Dallas Food Pantry has gone from serving 2,500 individuals a year to over 3,000 individuals a week during the Covid-19 pandemic, making it the second-largest food distribution operation in DFW. Robin is passionate about holistic care and believes the key to fighting food insecurity is not only giving food, but providing the tools that clients need to get on the path to self-sufficiency.
Thank you so much for doing this with us! Before we dig in, our readers would like to get to know you a bit more. Can you tell us a bit about your “backstory”? What led you to this particular career path?
I was born and raised in Toronto, Canada, and lived there for over half my life. I can honestly say I never imagined I’d end up in Dallas, Texas, but that is just one example of how my life continues to evolve and surprise me!
When I graduated high school, I was actually determined to become a flight attendant. I had an interview scheduled, but when I told my school guidance counselor of my plans, she said, “no, you’re going to university,” and enrolled me that day. I ended up getting my bachelor’s degree in psychology before taking a celebratory trip to the Dominican Republic.
There, I happened to meet another woman from Canada who worked for The City of Toronto. She told me about an opening for a caseworker, which was right up my alley. That is where I developed a love for helping others and the community. Being a caseworker and making a visible difference in other peoples’ lives is how service became part of my passion and heart.
In 2005, I went on another trip, this time to New Orleans, and got trapped in Hurricane Katrina, which completely changed the trajectory of my life. Afterward, I moved to Dallas, started a family, and took a case manager position with Jewish Family Service of Greater Dallas. Since then, I navigated within the agency and grew to become my current role as Sr. Director of Special Programs, Hunger Relief. I guess you can say that I’ve always gone wherever the wind takes me (sometimes literally).
Can you share the most interesting story that happened to you since you began your career?
When I worked for The City of Toronto, my responsibilities included processing applications for welfare assistance and helping clients navigate our services. The first time I realized what impact I could have in this line of work was when my former manager at The City of Toronto told me about “The Man.”
She described how she would watch The Man repeatedly walk up to the door of the welfare office and walk away, only to come back the next day, grab the door handle, and walk away again, for days and days. Finally, The Man opened the door, walked into the office, and began to sob. She asked me, “do you realize how hard it is to take those first steps in asking for help?” It was so hard for him to walk through those doors, but when he did, it was life-changing.
There is so much power in a single choice. The first step for someone to get back on their feet is knowing there is help available, and we should be proud whenever someone walks through the door. I’m reminded of that story daily at Jewish Family Service of Greater Dallas, where our tagline is “An open door to all in need.”
Are you able to identify a “tipping point” in your career when you started to see success? Did you start doing anything different? Are there takeaways or lessons that others can learn from that?
The tipping point for me was in 2017 when we purchased a 26 ft refrigerated box truck to source thousands of pounds of food to distribute in our Food Pantry from local grocery stores and small businesses. Up until that point, we were relying on volunteers to load their own personal cars with donations from grocery stores, local food drives, and our partners, knowing that we could not provide the volume of nutritious food our community needed. Food sourcing is one of the keys to fighting hunger. The purchasing of a truck represented a new door opening in feeding the community at large. The truck acted as a catalyst, bringing our overall lack of physical space to both store food and serve our clients to the forefront.
It allowed me to rethink how we serve and start to dream about making an even larger impact. Thus, the Food Pantry Expansion Project was born (more on that later in the interview). None of our advancements would have been possible without the power of our incredible volunteers, donors, and community.
However, all these changes bring the big “f” word — FEAR — of implementing change itself. The lesson in fear can be found in your mindset. If you become overwhelmed and spiral to the negative, you can drown. However, choosing to stop, reframe, and recognize the importance and power in your ability to pivot can change those initial moments of fear into something truly powerful. That is especially true if you have the support of a strong team and passionate community members. The ability to pivot creates more possibilities and slowly causes those fear responses to fade.
None of us are able to achieve success without some help along the way. Is there a particular person to whom you are grateful who helped get you to where you are? Can you share a story about that?
There are many people who have helped me along the way that I am so eternally grateful for, but there are two people, in particular, that stand out in my career. They opened doors and literally pushed me through them. First, my former supervisor at The City of Toronto, Leslie Stants, and the second, my current supervisor, Chief Executive Officer Cathy Barker, at Jewish Family Service of Greater Dallas, with whom I have worked for 10 years.
Leslie provided me with the guidance and opportunities to grow my skillset and really showed me different aspects of working in social services — the depth and breadth of all the different possibilities in this area of work. Cathy was the one who saw the passion and growth potential I had in being a leader and gave me the opportunity to expand the Food Pantry program into what is now called the Hunger Relief Department. With the name change came expansions in services, the number of clients served, smoother processes and data tracking, and so much more. As a visionary, Cathy pushes people in ways that provide real growth. Cathy often says, “People can only do what they’re born to do if they are given that opportunity.”
You are a successful leader. Which three character traits do you think were most instrumental to your success? Can you please share a story or example for each?
The three character traits that were most instrumental to my success were passion, collaboration, and vulnerability. Anyone who knows me knows how expressive and passionate I am about my work. Deriving joy from interacting with clients, the community, donors, and staff is key to being a strong leader. How would anyone take me seriously if I didn’t care about the work? It’s that zeal that motivates the people I interact with to want to understand the mission and cause. That, in turn, spurs them to be passionate as well. You need many passionate people to connect to the cause in getting things done, especially in the nonprofit world.
Collaboration is necessary to start achieving your goals. You need dollars from donors, labor from volunteers, and trust from current and potential clients to become a successful operation. We could not have pulled off our recent 3,000 sq. ft. pantry expansion if it wasn’t for our agency leadership, incredible staff, grants from funders, our donors, our co-chairs, our construction company, our volunteers… and so many more. It truly took a village to get this idea from paper to a physical warehouse in less than two years. You can’t be afraid to ask for help for projects that are bigger than yourself.
Being vulnerable is what makes us human and relatable. Being transparent and authentic about not only your strengths but your weaknesses can be challenging. However, making mistakes is what continues our growth. When you work as a team, people will challenge you. Some may have different ideas, some may call you out on your mistakes, and some just may not like you. But in the end, it’s not about you; try not to internalize. It’s about helping others and giving people the tools that they need to fulfill the mission. Being vulnerable gives everyone on your team a reality check and the opportunity to make the changes necessary to have real progress. It shows the team we’re in this together. Our clients show up vulnerable, and, in many ways, so do we. Fighting hunger is about all of us.
When COVID-19 hit, we had to completely pivot and shift our operation from an indoor, appointment-only, client-choice shopping model to a weekly outdoor drive-thru food distribution. We had to ask our clients to work with us as we got our bearings — mobilizing our volunteers and partners to adapt to that new normal. However, that transparency and vulnerability resulted in us serving the largest number of clients yet. All of whom turn to us for help in getting back on their feet.
Can you please give us your favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? Can you share how that was relevant to you in your life?
“Doors will open when the timing is right.”
We all go through life having visions of how we want it to look and feel. Then you set out with these incredible passions and intentions and go through so many challenges, roadblocks, pain, heartache and mix it in with little bits of joy and love.
Then, you end up in a place you could never have imagined, and those goals you were working so hard for materialize, but not in the way you thought… it actually ends up better — for YOU.
Ok super. Let’s now shift to the main part of our discussion. Can you describe to our readers how your work is helping to address the challenge of food insecurity?
I’ve worked at Jewish Family Service of Greater Dallas (JFS Dallas) for over 14 years. The mission of the organization is to provide effective, accessible, and comprehensive mental health and social services that promote lifelong self-sufficiency and well-being for the Greater Dallas community. Our holistic approach to care and, specifically, fighting hunger and food insecurity can be broken down into four essential features: a strong staff/ volunteer base, a client-choice model, open accessibility, and holistic care.
Fighting hunger requires the ability to work in a fluid environment where things are ever-changing. Having staff that can pivot with change and volunteers that are motivated and passionate about the mission lays the foundation for service delivery in fighting hunger. You can’t open your doors without staff or volunteers.
The client-choice model, allowing clients to shop just like in a grocery store and choosing the items they prefer, is the key to a dignified experience and overall diminishing of food waste. There is real power in making choices and being able to provide food that is right for your family.
We try to remove any and all barriers to people accessing food. Whether someone is homebound, doesn’t have gas money to get to the Pantry, or just feels shame and is afraid to admit they need help; providing different channels to receive food is essential. At JFS, we have a Kosher Home-Delivered Meal program and provide grocery vouchers for those who might not be able to physically make it to our Pantry. If someone reaches out needing consistent help but is outside of the Greater Dallas area, we refer them to a partner and make sure they are taken care of.
We get to the root causes of hunger and provide holistic wrap-around services through Case Management. When someone comes through the JFS doors, hunger is often the first symptom of a larger diagnosis. In addition to providing food, we provide access to our continuum of services, including career and financial coaching, mental health counseling services, family violence intervention, and emergency financial assistance. These services are essential to getting to the root causes of hunger, and addressing all of these issues simultaneously is the key to fighting food insecurity and getting our clients back on the path to self-sufficiency. This is what makes Jewish Family Service of Greater Dallas unique as an agency. Our success derives from understanding that the way to help individuals is by treating them as a whole, not little by little.
Can you share something about your work that makes you most proud? Is there a particular story or incident that you found most uplifting?
I will never be more proud than I was the day that the Hunger Relief team at Jewish Family Service of Greater Dallas finally shut down the drive-thru food distribution line and returned indoors to our new, expanded, client-choice Food Pantry. The completion of the Food Pantry Expansion Project fills my heart, and I’m so proud.
Let’s take this back to 2017. The physical space challenges were real in all areas, from food storage to room capacity. The layout was a logistical nightmare. There was only one door, and that meant that food, clients, volunteers, and staff all only had one way in or out. We would have food deliveries passing through a tiny waiting room full of clients, then past the people shopping. When’s the last time you saw that in a grocery store? And did I mention the food storage was on the second floor, and pallets had to be packed onto a small elevator to get upstairs? I digress.
The vision started to become a reality after many tours with JFS leadership, community members, and passionate donors, who could see just how little the space was serving us. By late 2018, design, construction, and fundraising plans all started to take shape with the help of some passionate volunteers and donors. The vision was clear; however, the timing was not. A global pandemic changed everything!
We could no longer safely open due to our space limitations. We opened a contactless food distribution drive-thru line. Not in our wildest dreams did we ever imagine this model would be how we served the community. Through our incredible partnership with North Texas Food Bank and with help from our incredibly dedicated volunteers, we were able to serve over 3,000 individuals a week at the height of the pandemic, making JFS the second-largest food distribution in DFW. In total, we operated 75 weekly drive-thru distributions.
While we were serving outside, we were literally building inside. The new, expanded Food Pantry opened on December 2, 2021. We now had a 3,000 sq. ft warehouse all one floor, with separate storage, shopping areas, and interview rooms to get back to that client-choice model.
That first day back in the new expanded pantry space, I was working with a family. The father looked at me and said, “JFS saved us, really- through COVID, job loss, and a new baby born- you saved us. You were one of the only places I could get diapers for our newborn that was in the NICU, my trunk was filled with food, and I didn’t mind waiting in that line because I knew my family was going to get the essentials. To be back inside and to see this beautiful pantry, and I get to choose, I get that choice… again you saved us, I’m so thankful for JFS.”
Stories like that always remind me that I am lucky to have the opportunity to work for an organization that empowers the community. We are able to make more possible, which is better than I could ever have hoped for in my career.
In your opinion, what should other business and civic leaders do to further address these problems? Can you please share a few things that can be done to further address the problem of food insecurity?
While there have been some shifts in the business world with corporate social responsibility, it would be great to continue to see corporations have a stronger commitment to investing locally. These larger operations can help solve a lot of issues pertaining to hunger and economic inequality through time, talent, and treasure.
Civic leaders should look not only at the food, but the channels of accessing services and barriers that limit a person’s access to safe, nutritious food at home — eg: transportation, money for gas, home food storage (refrigeration, heating), etc. There are plenty of both basic and systemic issues to food accessibility.
For both business and civic leaders, it’s important to get in the weeds. Get to those root causes of hunger and take care of your consumers and constituents. You can do this through volunteering, hiring those who might not have an advanced degree and taking the time to train them, and showing kindness through your own business practices.
Are there other leaders or organizations who have done good work to address the challenge of food scarcity? Can you tell us what they have done? What specifically impresses you about their work? Perhaps we can reach out to them to include them in this series.
Jewish Family Service of Greater Dallas has been a partner agency of the North Texas Food Bank for over 25 years. The North Texas Food Bank has been a pillar for food sourcing and access with the mission to provide healthy food to people in our community. Through the leadership of CEO Tricia Cunningham, the North Texas Food Bank has been able to move through the constant changes in the food sourcing landscape and build stability for us to access nutritious food products to provide for our community. The ability to create stability in the food sourcing landscape has an enormous impact on organizations like us, who distribute the food to the individuals and families we serve.
If you had the power to influence legislation, are there laws that you would like to see introduced that might help you in your work?
There are two particular areas that are important to continue to address and build on legislatively. The first is food waste created by retail food businesses throwing out extra stock. They should be required to donate their extra food products to local food pantries or soup kitchens. A new California state law was passed in January 2022 in San Diego that made it mandatory for grocery stores and food suppliers to donate food beyond its “sell by” date to food pantries and assistance programs. That is a great stride in helping the food sourcing process for those communities. While we do have a few retail partners that donate food products, enacting laws across the country to make it required could have a much larger impact in addressing and fighting food insecurity.
The second area that should be addressed is SNAP (Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Programs) benefits. SNAP benefits should be expanded to include items like diapers, wipes, hygiene items, and other basic necessities. It’s all a part of addressing hunger. I also can’t tell you how many times I work with families that state they were not eligible for SNAP because they make literally $25 more than the allowable income levels. It’s heartbreaking. We need to address those families that are stuck in that gray area and expand who qualifies for assistance. We can’t leave families behind when we are addressing basic needs and issues surrounding hunger.
What are your “5 things I wish someone told me when I first started” and why? Please share a story or example for each.
- Teamwork makes the dream work.
- The simplest act can change everything.
- Pick your battles.
- Take the leap.
- Strive for balance.
Please see the video below for further detail.
You are a person of enormous influence. If you could inspire a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger. 🙂
I wish there was a movement to help people embrace change- to turn off the negative noise of the world and learn to embrace change with positive tools and an open heart.
Is there a person in the world, or in the US with whom you would love to have a private breakfast or lunch with, and why? He or she might just see this, especially if we tag them. 🙂
I know most people would answer this question and say the President of the United States or Jeff Bezos… but for me, it’s Cher. The insurmountable work in fighting hunger and working to improve your community can sometimes be heavy and stressful. Cher represents fun, strength, longevity, endless determination, and the ability to change always. And who doesn’t love her constant farewell tours? I remember at one of her farewell tours in Toronto, she said to the audience, “If I could tell you guys just one thing, it’s do everything you can now… just do it. And then you can look back and say naaahhh, I shouldn’t have done that ‘’ So funny and so true!
And if I could turn back time… I wouldn’t change a thing.
How can our readers further follow your work online?
They can visit www.jfsdallas.org and follow me on LinkedIn: @Robin Raxlin-Gormley.
This was very meaningful, thank you so much, and we wish you only continued success.
How Robin Raxlin Gormley Of Jewish Family Service of Greater Dallas Is Helping To Address The… was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.