Three Square’s new president ready to meet fresh challenge

Three Square, the food bank that provides sustenance for the hungry across most of the valley, is one of the most successful charities in the county. Under the leadership of Julie Murray, the organization has grown so big that it needs two warehouses to hold the food it distributes through 600 program partners.

Murray has guided the nonprofit so well that she has been asked to work at fighting hunger on the national level.

"It has been a privilege for me," Murray wrote in a press release, "to lead Three Square from a mere dream and vision to where we are today -- a thriving food bank providing food and hope to over 100,000 of our neighbors each month."

Murray is now with the national hunger relief charity Feeding America, working directly with that nonprofit's president and CEO, Vicki Escarra. She will remain in the valley, working from home.

Murray left behind some big shoes to fill, and Brian Burton, the new president and CEO of Three Square, has already jumped into them with both feet and is off and running.

"The first thing I did day one was to go out to the docks and meet the drivers at 5:30 in the morning," Burton said. "It would have been easy to dive right in to fundraising, but I wanted to meet the people doing the hands-on work."

Burton is a S outherner who grew up in Little Rock, Ark., went to college in Louisiana and eventually settled in Dallas. He speaks with an accent that conveys S outhern hospitality and a sharp mind. His conversation ranges through his corporate and seminary background, his love of the written word and his deep feeling for humanity.

Burton began his professional life at Centex Homes, working as a cost accountancy controller. After time in the corporate world he felt the call to the seminary and spent five years involved with Wilshire Baptist Church, a progressive Baptist church in Dallas.

"I am a reverend, but I don't use the term now," Burton said. "I don't feel that pious. I'd rather go by Brian."

Eventually Burton realized that the work he really wanted to do was in the community.

"I saw my role as equipping people to put their faith into action," he said.

A friend recommended he become involved with the Wilkinson Center, a charitable organization inspired when a Dallas pastor saw a child digging food out of a D umpster. Its mission statement declares that the center "transforms the lives of Dallas families by providing pathways to self-sufficiency with dignity and respect."

It was an eye-opening experience for Burton.

"I don't know what it's like to be hungry, and I pray I never do," Burton said. "It's changed the way I look at life. I was not used to poverty, and I was right in the thick of it, smelling it, touching it. Usually we're separated from people by economics, but here it was different. I knew I wanted to be a part of it."

Burton brought his business savvy to the charity and helped reinvent the organization, bringing people together and growing the organization from a full-time staff of two to 42.

"I feel like I ran at least three different organizations during my time there because things changed so much," Burton said. "The important thing is we grew without losing our heart."

During the last year he was restless and soul searching. He was looking for a new challenge when he discovered the opportunity at Three Square. At the time, Burton didn't know much about the city. His only previous visit had been to attend the Southern Baptist Convention in 1988.

"I didn't have much of an understanding of the community," Burton said. "But I did some research, and I was impressed not only with the work Three Square was doing but the economic need. I discovered there was a passionate board and a staff that was open to new ideas."

Burton visited the valley several times researching the position , but it was an impromptu visit to one of the food bank program partners that distributes the food to the needy that sold him on the job.

"I asked them what they thought of Three Square," Burton said. "They told me flat out, they couldn't do what they do without Three Square."

Feed America held its national conference on the Three Square campus in Sunrise Manor a few weeks before Burton came on board. He attended, and in a humorous but prophetic fluke of standardized labeling, his name and position badge at the conference read, "Brian Burton. To be provided at a later time."

Within two weeks, Burton had already met with corporate heads and visited many of the distribution centers. He casually greeted the workers in the warehouse by their first names.

"They're my heroes," Burton said. "They're the ones doing the work. Everyone here, from the marketing staff to the guy pushing the broom late at night, is awesome. I've inherited a first-class team."

Burton pointed out that hunger is a multifaceted issue, that it's possible to be poor and hungry and obese, from eating inexpensive food that is high in calories but low in nutrition.

"There's a food border between economic classes," Burton said. "There are food deserts, where people have no access to a supermarket. It's not just about food distribution, it's about good nutrition. We've got to try to get people to see options."

In addition to food distribution, Three Square has volunteers helping people fill out paperwork for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program. SNAP was formerly called the food stamp program, and Three Square has found there are many eligible residents who have difficulty getting through the paperwork process.

"The money goes back into the community because they use SNAP to buy food at local grocery stores," Burton said. "That frees up more of our resources to feed other people who don't qualify for the program."

Burton also is concerned with different sorts of poverty, noting that there is generational poverty, where the children of the poor grow up to be poor adults, but there is also situational poverty and the newly poor impacted by the current economic distress.

Where the organization was once helping people deal with temporary setbacks, Three Square is now helping people deal with long-term hunger issues.

"It's the most agonizing moral and humanitarian issue of our day," Burton said, "But it's solvable."

Three Square is always seeking volunteers and donations. It also can direct those in need to the nearest food distribution partner. For more information, visit www.threesquare.org or call 644-3663.

Contact Sunrise and Whitney View reporter F. Andrew Taylor at ataylor@viewnews.com or 380-4532.