Candice Griego is on the hunt for mutton.
As the Director of Tribal Relations at Roadrunner Food Bank in Albuquerque, N.M., Griego has identified mutton as highly desired among members of the Navajo Nation. Tracking it down is one part of her five-months-in role, which is entirely new to the food bank and somewhat unusual among all food banks.
According to Feeding America, 40% of food banks in the network share geography with tribal communities. Roadrunner signaled its commitment to better serving such communities when it created the tribal relations position and named Griego, a member of the Zia Pueblo tribe, to it. Originally envisioned as a manager position, the food bank’s President and CEO Dana Yost strengthened the role by elevating it to director status.
The higher level of commitment is useful. “To make these connections with tribal leaders, it’s really helpful to indicate that a director is going out to the community to make a visit,” Griego noted.
About 200,000 Native Americans live in New Mexico, with many in the Navajo Nation, which encompasses about 27,000 square miles in three western states. Building relationships within the Navajo community has been a top priority for Griego. Already, the food bank is making monthly food distributions to about a dozen or so chapter houses (community hubs) within the Navajo Nation to reach about 800 households, up from virtually none before. “It’s a really big jump from five months ago to now,” Griego said.
More recently, Griego began turning her attention to pueblos or towns outside of the Navajo Nation. So far, the food bank is serving 19 pueblos on a monthly basis to reach about 300 households. It serves another tribe on more of a quarterly basis, reaching about 400 households.
While Griego is focused on setting up as many distributions as possible, she doesn’t have an end goal in terms of the number of households to reach, noting that a lot depends on whether a community wants to participate. “You can’t make the assumption that every tribal community is in need of food,” she said. “We just want to make sure that they’re aware that if they do need help, that we are here to support them.”
Griego started her role by making cold calls to introduce herself and her role at the food bank. Now the relationships are expanding all the time through word of mouth. Griego has become a familiar presence at food distributions and even been invited to chapter house events. “I don’t have to make those calls any longer,” she noted.
Social media has been useful for keeping track of what’s going on in the communities. If a pueblo is going to do a 5K benefit run, for example, Roadrunner might donate water for the event, leading to food distributions down the road. “Even having that small presence there, just makes a huge difference,” Griego said.
In the upcoming fiscal year, Griego plans to reach out to the food bank’s community initiatives department to develop a needs assessment to identify culturally appropriate food for the tribal communities. (For more on one organization’s progress toward culturally relevant food, see our article here.) In addition to mutton, flour is high on many tribes’ list for its use in making bread, fruit pies and fry bread. “They’re very open with expressing what foods will work and will not work for their community,” she said.
Griego also hopes to expand her team, to have more staff that is local to the communities being served, some of which are nearly four hours away from Albuquerque. Showing up is important. Noted Griego, “They’re very happy that we’re making a presence there and that we’re being consistent with it.” – Chris Costanzo
PHOTO, TOP: An example of a drive-through distribution held by Roadrunner Food Bank.
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