Jennifer Apostol has dedicated her entire career to hunger-relief. She started working for the Middlesex County Improvement Authority straight out of college 27 years ago, when the Middlesex County food bank, known today as REPLENISH, was operating out of a closet in a police building. Soon after she joined, it grew from being run by volunteers into needing a full-time MCIA staff member to lead its work.
“It just blossomed from there,” Jennifer recalled. “It started out as a very small piece of my job description and gradually kept growing and growing until it comprised much more of what I was doing. It’s something I’ve always felt good doing.”
As she learned more about food insecurity and the scope of the problem in her home county, Jennifer found herself wanting to push other tasks away and focus more and more on growing REPLENISH.
“It was very eye-opening. It wasn’t something I was really aware of – how much of an issue it was – until I started doing this work,” she shared.
Today, REPLENISH has a staff of eight people, with Jennifer as its Director, and is an official part of Middlesex County government.
“Being embedded in county government gives us the opportunity to collaborate with other county offices,” Jennifer explained. She knows that it takes a village to address hunger – or, in this case, a county!
And it always has. When REPLENISH was still young, Middlesex County’s recycling division stepped in to help address the organization’s logistical limitations. Through a program called Curbing Hunger, recycling trucks would pick up donated food from schools, libraries, and other food drive sites. More recently, REPLENISH worked with the county’s solid waste management office on a food waste reduction campaign.
The organization began partnering with CFBNJ in 2009, when it moved from the humble closet where it began into a small warehouse space in New Brunswick.
“The Community FoodBank of New Jersey has really affected me and my work, driving awareness of food insecurity and leading the way we address it in our communities now,” Jennifer said.
To this day, CFBNJ is REPLENISH’s primary provider of food, and the two organizations collaborate to streamline service to REPLENISH’s pantry partners, share resources and information, and establish coalitions in high-need areas.
Now, REPLENISH partners with 150 pantries, soup kitchens, and social service agencies throughout Middlesex County, providing 5.2 million pounds of nutritious food annually.
Jennifer is leading the charge in the organization’s commitment to doing more than just distributing food – taking a whole person approach to hunger.
“I’m really moved by the change that’s happening now in the way we address food insecurity and looking at it more holistically – making sure that nutrition is a top priority, not just sustenance, and addressing the root causes of food insecurity, reducing stigma, connecting people to community resources, and really creating a welcoming culture at pantries,” she shared.
Her vision is to put organizations like REPLENISH and CFBNJ out of business by making food security a reality for everyone.
“I’m really motivated by the changes that I see being led by the Community FoodBank of New Jersey and the New Jersey Office of the Food Security Advocate,” she said. “I’m inspired and excited about what the future looks like for addressing food insecurity.”