GV’s Food Bank manager resigns for Tucson job

Lisa Kemper, Green Valley Community Food Bank branch manager, has resigned her position and started a new job with the Literacy Volunteers of Tucson as volunteer/community resources coordinator.

Kemper, who began work at the local food bank in December 2005, said her decision to change jobs was a career move. She was recruited by the Literacy Volunteers, she said, and accepted the new position because it offers a significant challenge, as well as higher pay.

“I have an equal passion for literacy as I do for hunger,” she said, but noted that she was “really, really sad to be leaving the food bank because I like it here.”

Kemper said she thought she did make a difference at the food bank, specifically by increasing donations, initiating a fresh-milk program and working to improve the nutritional content of the food bank’s supplies. .

“We’re definitely going to miss her and we wish her well. We’re glad to see her find an opportunity to be better compensated for the work she does and can do, She and her husband have four children and live in Rancho Sahuarita,” said Sandy Rios, president of the GV Community Food Bank’s Advisory Board.

Rios said Kemper was very successful as a branch manager in increasing the donations from Sahuarita, by involving various churches there and getting funding from the town.

Rios also praised Kemper for initiating a fresh milk program, the only such program in among the food bank’s five branches, and a new program to help feed children in need during the summer.

Rios said the board will begin a search immediately for Kemper’s replacement,

Kemper stressed that she was always mindful of treating clients with respect and preserving their dignity, perhaps partly because she herself came from a background of poverty and had to struggle hard to obtain a college education.

Large increase in households

In the two years Kemper worked at the food bank, she said, she saw a 10 percent to 15 percent increase in the numbers of household served each month. Last month the food bank provided assistance to 494 households in Green Valley and Sahuarita.

“We’ve seen an increase in new people and tried to grow the involvement in the Sahuarita area because many clients come from there,” she said.

While many people believe Green Valley is an affluent community, there are many pockets of hunger there and in Sahuarita, Kemper said.

“In Green Valley there’s a problem with some people outliving their resources and some of them are in bad shape,” she said.

She said she was proud of leading the food bank through a time when the non-profit met its budget and was able to obtain a new truck to pick up food.

“Our little van is getting very old,” she said.

The new truck was purchased by the Tucson Community Food Bank, the main branch, for about $20,000, she said, but additional money was invested in the vehicle to specially equip it for the GV food bank.

The GV food bank brings in donations of about $200,000 a year, she said, and is staffed, in addition to herself, with two part-time employees and 150 volunteers whose total hours add up to time for six to seven full-time employees.

The Literacy Volunteers of Tucson, a non-profit organization, has 150 volunteers and 450 students, aged 16 and older. The organization offers classes and one-on-one tutoring.

“I thought I would stay much longer at the food bank, but this is a career move, moving up the ladder.” Kemper said.

Kemper and her husband, Kevin, a journalism professor at the University of Arizona who just completed the bar examination, and their four children moved to Sahuarita in August 2005 from Oklahoma. The children range in age from 10 to 17.

Lisa Kemper is a graduate of the University of Missouri-Columbia. When she married her husband, he was a Baptist minister and she spent 17 years helping him with his ministry in small towns in Oklahoma, Michigan and Missouri, while raising their children.

As part of their ministry, the couple was involved early on with the Crisis Pregnancy program, and she and Kevin worked hard to develop food pantries as well, which soon became a major focus, she said.

Asked if she had any parting worlds for donors and clients, Kemper replied: “Hunger is a real issue here and a growing issue. People need to continue to support the food bank with canned donations and money. What the Green Valley Food Bank needs right now are canned corn and canned peas, and people would like to see more meat and cheese available,” she said.

kengle@gvnews.com| 547-9732

Coming Wednesday
Editorial: Former Green Valley Food Bank manager was part therapist, social worker and business leader as she showed concern for an increasing number of clients. She will be missed.