Lisa Hamler-Fugitt is the executive director of the Ohio Association of Second Harvest Foodbanks (OASHF), the largest charitable response to hunger in the state. The OASHF represents the 12 Feeding America Foodbanks in Ohio and provides training, food, funding and tech assistance to a network of 3,000 other charities.
“This is my life,” Lisa says, “but it’s not about me, it’s about so many others who have played by all of the rules and through no fault of their own–a job loss, illness, accident–find themselves unable to feed themselves or their families.”
Lisa’s passion for helping others is contagious, and the ability to give hope to those who are hopeless is what she is most proud of. “We’ve been blessed with building such a wonderful network and having a really diverse partnership with governors and elected officials.” Lisa is grateful that hunger has never been viewed as a partisan issue in Ohio.
In addition to Lisa’s work with the OASHF, she also runs the Ohio Benefit Bank, an Internet-based application assistance program. The Ohio Benefit Bank connects low to mid-income families with work support as well as tax credits. Through the Ohio Benefit Bank alone, 5,000 people give their time and talent to ensure that families in Ohio are getting the proper assistance that they deserve.
There are nearly two million people in Ohio who are food insecure and don’t have funding or resources to feed themselves. The Ohio Benefit Bank was brought to the state in 2006 and since then has served 180,000 Ohioans. The Ohio Benefit Bank is supported through a public-private partnership between the Office of Governor Ted Strickland, the OASHF and Ohio’s foodbanks as well as over 1,100 faith-based, nonprofit, governmental and private partners.
The work that Lisa has done in her career has been in an effort to fulfill her life’s goal: to end world hunger as we know it. Lisa feels that if we aren’t able to do so, it threatens democracy and the natural world order. “It’s essential that people have the resources that they need to fulfill their basic needs,” Lisa says. If we are to continue polarizing world views our society will be threatened by unnecessary conflict. “We have to find common ground and work for the common good. We’ll always have differences, but those differences cannot continue to divide us or else we’ll all be losers in the end.”
Lisa’s passion to do good in this world remains not faltered through the obstacles she faces daily in finding support for the OASHF and helping an ever-growing number of people who have fallen upon hard times. Through the hardships however, Lisa finds herself continuously pushing forward in an attempt to find common ground with potential supporters.
When she doesn’t have her eyes set on saving the world, Lisa is a wife to her husband Richard, a mother to her daughter Erin and grandmother to Erin’s son. Gardening is a hobby of hers that she tends to in her virtually non-existent spare time, but truly finds nothing more rewarding than her career of helping improve the quality of life of others.