Media Coverage

Matt Habash is the president and CEO of Mid-Ohio Food Collective. He has led Ohio’s largest food bank for over four decades.

As our elected lawmakers work out Ohio’s next two-year budget, they are considering cutting funding to pantries and food banks that help our hungry neighbors.

Last year, Mid-Ohio Food Collective distributed more than 85 million pounds of nutritious food across our 20-county service area (including Franklin County). Nearly one quarter of that food, more than 20 million pounds, came from state dollars. A state funding cut would mean millions of meals missing from dinner tables across our region at a time families simply can’t afford it.

The president and CEO of the Akron-Canton Regional Foodbank was named the 2025 John van Hengel Fellow by Feeding America during the organization’s annual conference in Atlanta in April.

Dan Flowers has dedicated nearly 30 years to food banking, beginning his career as an agency relations coordinator and now serving as leader of the Akron-Canton food bank for the past two decades.

Over the past two months, the Akron Beacon Journal has done some exceptional reporting on local food deserts, the high rates of food insecurity evident in the charitable food system over the past two years, and the state and federal funding cuts that threaten the safety net that the Akron-Canton Regional Foodbank and its 600 charitable partners provide. Indeed, 2025 is going to be a defining year regarding the intersections of economic, agricultural and social assistance programs, and this reporting has provided excellent sightlines into the field of debate.