Food bank ousted by U.S. group

The Community Food Bank of Clark County is supposed to help feed the valley's hungry for free.

But a national network of food banks said this week that the local nonprofit has been selling some of the donations it has received -- including groceries, toiletries, even camping equipment -- that instead should have been given away.

America's Second Harvest, a network of more than 200 food banks and food rescue organizations nationwide, terminated Community Food Bank's membership because of "serious violation of the core values" of the network. The move has the potential to shut down the agency, which is three decades old and the only one of its kind in the county.

"They were selling food and other items they had collected to be given to hungry Americans," said Phil Zepeda, a spokesman for America's Second Harvest. "No hungry American should ever have to pay for food."

Bessie Braggs, longtime director of the food bank, vehemently denied the charges.

"Anybody who knows us knows we have always tried to do what's right and do things the right way," she said. "We are not selling food."

The food bank distributes food to 125 local churches, social service and other organizations that help the poor.

America's Second Harvest, a nearly 30-year-old nonprofit that distributes billions of pounds of donated grocery products from national manufacturers and retailers each year to food banks, said it investigated the local food bank after receiving complaints about it selling off items that should have been given away.

The sales were separate from small, set "shared maintenance fees" that charities nationwide pay by the pound to food banks for such goods.

The national organization sent staffers and even hired private investigators posing as clients to visit the food bank several times. "They went in and were able to purchase food that was meant to be given for free," Zepeda said.

On Aug. 18, staffers from the national organization also visited the food bank and "observed and documented numerous individuals purchasing items from your warehouse sale," according to a letter America's Second Harvest sent to Braggs.

Braggs said the staffers stormed into her warehouse at 4190 N. Pecos Road in the middle of the food bank's "reclaimed products sale," in which individuals or agencies can, for a $20 donation each, fill a 33-gallon bag with donated goods including toothpaste, blankets and other items.

"We have a program where we get rid of things we can't use," she said. "We don't need it here. I'd have to throw it in the garbage."

She compared the program to thrift stores run by other charities.

Braggs said the $20 is merely a "suggested donation" and that the food bank never would turn away anyone who couldn't afford to pay it.

The money helps offset some of the costs of running the food bank, including transporting products. Saturday's sale raised about $3,000, she said.

She also denied that the food bank was selling products outside the reclaimed product sales and was angry that the national organization hadn't spoken to her earlier about any problems it heard about or observed. "Why would they even do this?" she said. "They could have come to me and said, 'Stuff is being sold. You guys got a problem.' "

But according to the letter Braggs received from America's Second Harvest, the national organization did tell the food bank about the problem. "This notification should not be a surprise to you or your Board," the letter said, adding that during a July 19 board meeting, "staff informed you that it is against America's Second Harvest policy ... to sell donated product."

Braggs said such a discussion never took place. "That was never brought up at the board meeting," she said.

Braggs worries that the allegations could mean the end of the food bank. She said one major donor, Nabisco, which gives crackers, cookies and other goods to the food bank, already has pulled out after being contacted by America's Second Harvest.

"They can shut us down," she said. "It's going to hurt the community very, very badly."

Zepeda said his organization is working to minimize the effect that the food bank's loss of donors or closure would have on the community.

"We will make sure that agencies served by the food banks will still get food immediately," he said, adding that his organization is looking for local warehouse space and that the Food Bank of Northern Nevada in Sparks will help out in the meantime.

Braggs said that the food bank long has had a difficult relationship with America's Second Harvest and that the national organization dropped the food bank's membership "because they want to do their own food program here in town."

But Zepeda said the decision "had nothing to do with personal motives at all."

"When we present this type of termination, it's for significant violations."

The food bank's yearly budget ranges from $500,000 to $800,000, Braggs said. It is a private nonprofit funded through a combination of county and federal grants and donations.

Clark County gave nearly $3.2 million in community development block grant funds to the food bank to help it purchase a 50,000-square-foot warehouse a couple of years ago. It also provides $165,000 in county funds to the food bank each year.

"The food bank has been operating for years," Clark County Community Resources Manager Douglas Bell said Friday. "They feed thousands of poor people."

Bell called the disagreement between the food bank and America's Second Harvest "a short-term issue" and said he has asked the national network for more information about it.

He's hoping things can be patched up. "If there are procedures they (America's Second Harvest) perceive as inappropriate, a nonprofit could change their procedures to be in compliance."

He said he wasn't sure about the food bank's practice of periodically holding reclaimed property sales.

"If you look at regular private businesses, they periodically have mass sales to unload" items they can't use, he said. "Whether that's acceptable or not in America's Second Harvest's charter is still to be decided."

Braggs is concerned that the reputation she has worked to build over her 20-year career at the food bank will be tarnished by the recent events.

"People call me 'Food Bank Bessie,'" she said. "The community has been so good to us. For anybody to think we've done something wrong really bothers me."