BY KAREN BOSSICK

Jeanne Liston will step down from The Hunger Coalition this fall to make way for new leadership.

She will be succeeded by longtime coworkers Naomi Spence and Brooke Pace McKenna, who will serve as Co-Executive Directors. The three have been sharing executive duties for several years since they began implementing a shared leadership model.

Liston has steered The Hunger Coalition for the past 17 years, taking it from a tiny food pantry run by volunteers to a staff of 20 overseeing the Bloom Community Food Center and Bloom Farm.

“This announcement is certainly bittersweet for me as The Coalition has become my family and my home,” said Liston. “We have a staff and board with the passion, talent and ability to take our organization to new heights. With this is mind, there is no better time for me to step aside and create space for other leaders to thrive.”

Liston, Spence and McKenna have been trying a shared leadership concept on for size over the past few years, with Liston handling the fundraising; Spence, the program, and McKenna, the operations.

“The executive director is a big load so having two people to share it is going to make it more palatable and this shared leadership concept is potentially some other organizations could look at,” Liston said. “Their combined time with the organization totals an impressive 24 years, their strengths complement each other and both will bring something different to the table. And, of course, it hasn’t been just the three of us sharing leadership. It’s been the rest of the team, as well.”

• Jeanne Liston dreamed of being a veterinarian as a youngster. But she initially worked with The Nature Conservancy and Environmental Resource Center when she moved to the Wood River Valley.

Still, she had spent nearly two years in Africa living and working with a Peace Corps volunteer in Kenya and visiting places like Madagascar and Morocco where she saw a level of poverty not seen in the United States. And that drove her in another direction.

“When I came back, I struggled to understand why people were in need here when there are so many resources to tap into. That led me to start volunteering in soup kitchens and various organizations just to understand and see challenges people face,” she said.

Liston joined the board of The Hunger Coalition, which Tom Iselin had started in 2003. And, when Iselin left, she applied for and received the job of director.

Then, The Hunger Coalition was an organization of volunteers that sorted food in a small pantry based in what is now the Family Health Services in Bellevue and distributed it to social service organizations like The Advocates to distribute to their clients.

“We never met the people we were helping to feed,” said Liston.

But a month after Liston took the reins the Castle Rock Fire brought the community to its knees. And, when the Great Recession hit in 2008, the community never recovered.

“We saw that we needed to do more, that we needed to be that frontline organization distributing food directly to people in need,” said Liston.

But Liston realized that providing emergency food was just a Band-Aid. And, so, she and her co-workers have tried to establish more of a social justice model that identifies the root causes that bring people to the food distribution line, including low wages and lack of affordable housing.

“If all we ever do is give out food, nobody will ever leave the line. If we address the root causes, maybe we can move the needle,” she said.

Even as she and her co-workers worked towards that end, they found themselves feeding a record number of families when the COVID pandemic hit.

The organization fed 6,495 individuals in 2020, even as it opened the Bloom Community Food Center, which includes commercial greenhouses and a commercial kitchen. The organization is still feeding double the number of families it was before COVID struck.

“The Bloom Community Food Center represents so much more than emergency food. It’s a space where people can come grow food together, eat together, get their needs met with agencies that provide services. Hopefully, it’s a beacon of hope for people, a place to connect with each other and a place to talk about the challenges people have and work together to solve those issues,” she said.

• Naomi Spence came on board in 2008—the second person hired after Liston.

  Born in Israel, she enjoyed an international family dispersed throughout the world but grew up in Seattle, San Francisco, Portland and New York. After 10 years working for the retail group Urban Outfitters in New York, she visited her sister in Idaho and fell in love with the peacefulness and the wilderness of the Gem State.

  “I had not realized places like this existed,” she said.

  Spence went to work as field director for a wilderness program for at-risk kids operating between Gooding and Shoshone and then signed on with The Hunger Coalition.

  “My favorite part is being part of an extraordinary fast-moving, ever-evolving organization that’s always  listening to people and trying to see what it can do to make things better,” she said. “When you work for a nonprofit in small town like this, you can really see the impact of the work. Walking side by side people as they go through daily circumstances, I’ve fallen in love with the working people of Blaine County. They inspire me every day.”

  Spence wants to use The Hunger Coalition as a platform to build young leaders and watch them go out into the community and do great things.

  “We want to grow leaders out of people who may not in the past have had opportunity to have leadership roles, to have a voice at the table,” she said.

• Brooke Page McKenna was born and raised in Hailey before heading to Prescott College in Prescott, Ariz., where she got a degree in human ecology, which is the study of human systems using an ecological lens.

“Hailey was an amazing place to grow up,” she said. “I remember roaming the streets forever and coming home when the street lights came on.”

McKenna had 10 years of nonprofit experience when she went to work for The Hunger Coalition.

“It’s not a traditional nonprofit to work for—it’s always sought bold solutions to issues. Of course, tackling hunger is our No. 1 focus. But there’s so much else going on in a community that leads to food insecurity that can be changed for the better,” she said.

McKenna, like Spence, is excited about working to build a next generation of leaders.

“When you work in a traditional office environment, you’re watching a clock, creating widgets and getting out of there. We want to build people who are passionately connected with the community and want to see it better, people who will take ownership and go out and be a leader in whatever capacity, whether as mayor of Hailey or leader of a nonprofit organization like The Hunger Coalition,” she said.

McKenna said she will be sorry to see Liston step down.

“She deserves a break—the woman has put a lot of her life into this,” she said. “She’s such an amazing role model. She’s able to listen to a variety of voices and absorb a lot of different opinions and viewpoints. She’s really a peacemaker—she’s taught me to be a little bit more open to different opinions and listen to others really well.”

Paul Ahern, the board chair of The Hunger Coalition, said the board is grateful for the extraordinary contributions Liston has made to the community as the founding executive director of The Hunger Coalition.

“The organization has evolved into a thriving community center which provides access to good food to all people while working to address the root causes of hunger,” he said. “This level of service would not have been possible without Jeanne’s vision and dedication.”

Liston said she hopes to stay in the valley, depending on what work is out there.

“I’m proud of all we’ve accomplished as an organization over the years and can’t wait to see what’s to come,” she said. “While I don’t yet know what my future holds, I do know that I will always be The Hunger Coalition’s biggest fan.”