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[Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] how many in this room have heard of the Ohio benefits bank it's a better audience than most I have been to so many calories with two hands one hand no hand this is one of the best inventions Ohio ever made I am such a big fan of this program and I have been just totally amazed at how you know about it so I am determined to get the word out about this valuable resource and it's starting right here with brent who is Wrigley is the program manager for the Ohio benefit bank I will be calling him to get ways to publicize this more because this is something that saves us so much money and if you aren't using it you are leaving even more money than the veterans justice outreach program on the table and so I'm hoping you'll share some dollars and figures and what those programs are and the foundation and I and the stepping-out program are really committed to making sure a lot more people get educated in Ohio because Queen Ohio invented this program good morning my name is Brent sickly the senior program manager for the Ohio Association of food banks Thank You Evelyn for the introduction and I know that many of you are familiar with the Ohio benefit bank so for those of you that are not familiar I hope that this will be informational for you but those of you that are familiar with the please bear with me as some of this may be a little bit redundant but with that said I work for the Ohio Association of food banks how many of you have heard of the mid-ohio food bank excellent so the mid-ohio food bank is one of our 12 feeding America Food Bank's that we help to manage and maintain across the state of Ohio so our whole goal is to try to fight and eliminate hunger within the state of Ohio that is our whole goal that is our whole mission okay so with that said how many of you have ever known someone has been in situational poverty this raise your hand majority of us I'm quite sure all of us at some point in time have run into the neighbor or friend somebody and I heard a commercial this morning that I that I thought was rather fitting and it was from feeding america and the commercial started out by saying that i am the person that has the office right next to yours that I am the person that has the children going the same school that your children go to I'm the same person that shots at the same grocery store as you do I'm the person that's living right next door to you I am your neighbor but I am also food insecure and I think the the statistic said that one in six Americans across this great nation are food insecure even more one in four children within our great state are food insecure so the reality is is that hunger is very much a problem within our country and what we're trying to do is advocate and we are trying to make sure that people are realizing that hunger is a real problem with that said our great executive director Lisa hamler-fugitt had approached the idea of the benefit bankin had heard about it back in 2005 2006 and thought that the benefit bank would be appropriate to have under the underneath the umbrella of the Ohio Association of food banks and since then we have been able to get back over 1.5 billion dollars in government work support programs and tax credits across this state we've been able to get back over 1.5 billion dollars and government work support programs and tax credits back into this state all through the Ohio benefit bank by helping individuals to get access to benefits that they're eligible for such as food assistance medical assistance childcare subsidy heat we can also help with free tax assistance fafsa with that we are trying to make sure that individuals are aware of these programs that they're eligible for too often times people get do not receive benefits that the eligible for based on a number of reasons due to transportation a lack of knowledge maybe it maybe language barriers especially here in columbus ohio it could be that you don't have the time to take off work some of us don't have that a time to take off whether it be a half a day or a full day to go down to a community action agency or go down to the agency administering certain benefits so with that the ohio benefit bank has partnered with organizations all across the state from hospitals universities school districts libraries nonprofit social service organizations and we're trying to make sure that people are getting connected with these services for example our partnership with the ohio state university we have their social work program that's connected with us to where they have undergraduate students and graduate social work students that are mandated to go through our training that then receive our training and then go out into their internships and help people with accessing the benefit bank we have great organizations such as a lutheran Social Services here in Columbus Ohio that do such great advocacy and great work with getting and providing tax services and tax programs but one of my favorite benefits on the benefit bank is the Medicare savings program and helping individuals and senior citizens with their Medicare costs and a lot of you are probably familiar with senior citizens that may be on a fixed budget or on a fixed income and i'm originally from canton ohio and how many of you are familiar with Canton Ohio what are we famous for pro football hall of fame so with that said I love Canton Ohio very much but it's very very much economically depressed and it's a manufacturing town that went under that has a lot of service industries but not a whole lot of jobs when it comes to keeping individuals there and keeping them above float and with that I was an Ohio benefit being counselor as an AmeriCorps member back in 2008 and 2009 and shout out to AmeriCorps they reached their one millionth member for those of you that are not familiar with AmeriCorps AmeriCorps is the domesticated version of the Peace Corps and do a lot of great work across this great country but with that said I realized the need for the benefit bank as the majority of people that I helped out in Canton Ohio were not people that were living in generational poverty but there were people that were lived that were victims of situational poverty these are individuals that had never heard of a job and family services before these were individuals that were in middle class or upper middle class their entire lives but due to a job loss or due to a divorce and as many of you are aware marriages in America don't last long one in two to one and two marriages end in divorce so can you imagine what that would cause on an individual where you have one spouse that works all the time and you have a stay-at-home spouse so what would that do to that person that has not worked for over 10 years and then you give them now two or three kids that they have to deal with so we are trying to make sure that we are reaching out to everyone and making everyone aware of what is out there and what is available and with the Medicare savings program I can't tell you how many times I've heard of senior citizens that told me that they choose between the basic necessity of life which is food and/or their medication each month that is a sad reality for many Americans across our country that is a reality for our grandparents for our uncle's for our nieces this is a reality that is unfortunately crushing our society when it comes to people truly not getting access to these benefits so what the Ohio benefit bank is trying to do is to make people more aware and breaking down these barriers now I want to make sure that I am keeping on time because i know that i was running late i know you guys were going through a speed dating session here with all these speakers so i'm going to try to be finished up here within the next couple of minutes but if you are interested in learning more or hearing more about what we have to offer at the Ohio Association of food banks and more about the Ohio benefit bank please take one of my business cards back at the table I believe I have one of the only business cards that are at that table surprisingly enough so it'll be pretty easy to find along with my colleagues Martin Terry's business card you can feel free to contact one of us know that I am in charge of the entire state of Ohio so with that I'm often on the road so please don't get mad at me if you call me and I don't answer i will get back with you within 24 hours but i am very much appreciative of Evelyn and for Dustin for affording me this opportunity to come and speak to all of you and also I am having what is called a community engagement meeting October 20th here in Columbus Ohio at the star house between one and four pm those of you that are familiar with the star house they recently remodeled and and they have a great new facility and we're hosting a community engagement meeting and inviting community partners such as yourselves and others that may be interesting knowing more about the benefit bank more about the Ohio Association of food banks we have individuals from the Ohio Department of Youth Services and job and family services that will be coming to speak at this event as guest speakers so if you're interested please email me or call me I would love to have you there just so that i can add you to our list and again thank you so much for affording me this time yes ma'am for an individual maybe hold out yes they want to try to find out what type of services they're eligible for and somebody go to a benefit bank on their behalf or does it have to be the actual so that's a great question so ending any individual can visit wwii benefit org and from there they would be able to do a quick check which would allow them to see what they may be eligible for in a matter of minutes by inputting household income household size and how many individuals are living in that household and then from there they could then apply by themselves if they're comfortable enough to do their benefits by themselves also I do want to put out since tax season is right around the corner we do help with free taxes taxes for individuals that are single you can make up to 65,000 and file your federal state and local taxes for free and if you're married you can make up to 95,000 and we can still help you file your federal state and local taxes for free I'd a woman from after Beulah that told me she made $5,000 had one w2 and got charged five hundred dollars from liberty tax services to get her taxes done that's the last thing that we want is for individuals that are in low income that are in poverty impoverished situations to have to pay that much for tax services so please get the word out please take one of my business cards I love to talk with you more in depth if you have any more questions I'd love to be able to answer them after that since I know that my time is up but thank you again and have a great day we also now have this program available at every state law library every library so you can access it through the libraries as well you don't have to have a trained benefits site but it's a simple computer program you enter data it tells you all the programs you or algebra for help supply for those programs and also those who are low-income not only do they provide tax services those who have families get money back earned income credit but you have to file a tax return and most the time the people that are titled to earn income benefit don't file tax returns the Legal Aid Society also offers tax tax preparation for people who qualify for the earned income benefits so the Legal Aid Societies is one of their services as well [Music]