Government: Getting Government Support During COVID-19
Government: Getting Government Support During COVID-19
Past Event
Wednesday May 6, 2020
Government passed legislation to provide organizations with support during the pandemic, but have you made the most of what’s available to your organization? Are you sharing the right information with the right people? Learn from experts how you can work with different levels of government to improve food access and reduce food waste.
Panelists
Emily Broad Leib
Director, Harvard Law School Food Law and Policy Clinic
Emily Broad Leib
Director, Harvard Law School Food Law and Policy Clinic
Emily M. Broad Leib is a Clinical Professor of Law, Director of the Harvard Law School Food Law and Policy Clinic, and Deputy Director of the Harvard Law School Center for Health Law and Policy Innovation. As founder of the Harvard Law School Food Law and Policy Clinic, Broad Leib launched the first law school clinic in the nation devoted to providing clients with legal and policy solutions to address the health, economic, and environmental challenges facing our food system. Broad Leib focuses her scholarship, teaching, and practice on finding solutions to some of today’s biggest food law issues, aiming to increase access to healthy foods, eliminate food waste, and support sustainable food production and local and regional food systems. She has published scholarly articles in the California Law Review, Wisconsin Law Review, the Harvard Law & Policy Review, the Food & Drug Law Journal, and the Journal of Food Law & Policy, among others.
Elizabeth Balkan
Director, Food Waste, Food & Agriculture Program, Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC)
Elizabeth Balkan
Director, Food Waste, Food & Agriculture Program, Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC)
As the director of food waste in the Healthy People & Thriving Communities program, Elizabeth Balkan helps to catalyze and scale food waste reduction from businesses and consumers at the local and national levels. Previously, Balkan served as director of policy at the New York City Department of Sanitation, developing and implementing the city's zero-waste plan. Before that, she worked as a senior official in the mayor’s office during the Bloomberg administration. She has worked extensively with cities to make sustainable development economically viable in the developed and developing context and spent more than 10 years working and living in China. She holds a master’s degree from Columbia University and a bachelor’s from Georgetown University. She is based in the New York office.
Tom O'Donnell, PhD
Sustainability Coordinator, US Environmental Protection Agency (NAHE) Region 3
Tom O'Donnell, PhD
Sustainability Coordinator, US Environmental Protection Agency (NAHE) Region 3
Tom, a geologist, environmental scientist, entrepreneur, and teacher is a sustainability coordinator at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (NAHE) in its Sustainable Management of Food Program. Tom is the primary architect of the Urban Surplus Food Recovery Model, which was acknowledged through a 2014 Public Service Excellence in Government award and, with his colleagues, through a 2019 USEPA National Achievement award. He is also the inaugural Engagements with the Common Good Fellow at Cabrini University, Pa where he teaches classes in food insecurity and hunger. Current interests include supporting predictive analytic tools and earned-revenue models for farm food loss and helping others find new ways to process and distribute nutritious surplus food into communities with access challenges. He also advocates for expanding business opportunities and jobs to reduce food waste in the United States. Tom earned a Doctorate in environmental science from the University of Virginia and holds both Bachelor and Master of Science degrees in geology from Franklin & Marshall College and the University of Texas at Dallas, respectively. His research has been broadly published in peer-reviewed, international scientific journals, trade association publications, and blog posts on food insecurity. As a past-time, Tom, an ultramarathoner, trains adults to run half-marathons and full-marathons. He and his wife Margie have two sons and two grandchildren.
Event Resources
Key Takeaways
USE LOCAL KNOWLEDGE
Emily highlights that it’s difficult for the federal government to precisely target where funding should go. She recommends greater collaboration across federal, state, and local governments, so that state and local governments can use their intimate knowledge of their constituents to help direct federal funding to where it will have the greatest impact.
MAKE YOUR CASE
Relatedly, Emily expects states and localities will receive more federal funding in the coming weeks. She recommends contacting your representative in Congress, as well as working with your state and local governments, to help them build a case as to why your region should receive funding. You can find their contact info here.
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