This past weekend, DESK hosted its annual Strategic Planning Retreat. Board members, staff, volunteers, and other stakeholders came together to revisit our mission, examine our impact, and determine a path forward for future services and programming.
This year, our leadership focused on the next phase of our dinner program, as we struggle to respond to an increase in food insecurity and hunger in New Haven. Do we go back to big, indoor, community dinners, like we had pre-pandemic? Do we stick with the popular grab-and-go model we adopted in 2020? Do we merge our Drop-in Center program with the dinner program? Do we explore new avenues and new partnerships for meeting the need?
These are big questions! And they certainly can’t be answered in just a six-hour retreat on a weekend. Instead, the group used this time to brainstorm possibilities and begin mapping the strategy to fill in our knowledge-gaps over the next six to eight months. With the proper resources and information, our Board will have the tools to make an informed decision on how best to serve our community.
So in case you were wondering, this is what responsible governance looks like!
Huge shout out to Southern Connecticut State University and the Community Alliance for Research and Engagement for offering up their beautiful new space in the Health and Human Services Building — thank you!