September Newsletter

Please join AFWA for our September 2026 Monthly Meeting

Tuesday, September 22nd

11:30 am - 1:00 pm at the Walden Club

Presenter: Melissa Blevins, President & CEO of the Chattanooga Area Food Bank

Topic: State of Hunger – How the Chattanooga Area Food Bank is Responding

Field of Study: Economics

CPE Credit: 1 Hour

Presentation Overview: Description: For decades, the Chattanooga Area Food Bank has worked to ensure no neighbor goes without food. Today, the challenges facing our community call us to do even more. This presentation will explore the current state of hunger in our region, the economic pressures driving more working families to seek assistance from food pantries, and how the Chattanooga Area Food Bank is investing boldly in solutions that will create a stronger, more food-secure future for our region.

About Our Presenter:  Melissa Blevins serves as the President & CEO of the Chattanooga Area Food Bank and has spent more than a decade focusing on ending hunger.
Before transitioning to the nonprofit sector in 2011, Melissa spent most of her career in manufacturing.  She held a variety of roles as her leadership career progressed – overseeing production, quality, and safety departments.  The thing she loved the most in all of her roles were the people she worked with. 
In her current role, Melissa provides leadership and strategic vision to end hunger in the 20 counties served by the Chattanooga Area Food Bank.  She began her career at the food bank in 2011 as the Director of Operations and was instrumental in the extraordinary growth of the organization through 2017, when the food bank doubled their distribution efforts.  She led efforts to expand access to fresh milk, fruits and vegetables, implemented technology to move their operations online and started a delivery program to ensure that all of the rural areas in the food bank’s service area had equitable access to food.  In 2017, Melissa took the helm of Girls Inc. of Chattanooga and worked to expand afterschool programs and camps for more girls to be strong, smart, and bold.  In 2020, Melissa returned home to the food bank and led the food bank through the pandemic.  Since then, the food bank has continued to grow their hunger-relief efforts and has expanded their initiatives to better serve their network of 200 partners and the estimated 180,000 food insecure neighbors in their service region. 
Melissa has been involved in numerous civic and nonprofit organizations including Susan G. Komen, Kiwanis, and Chamber of Commerce.  She currently serves on the Board of Directors for the Chattanooga Chamber of Commerce, Feeding Georgia and the Women’s Fund of Greater Chattanooga.  She is a member of the Rotary Club of Chattanooga and in her free time loves to hike, golf, and travel to beaches and mountains. 
Melissa received her Bachelor of Science degree from Covenant College. She is a proud mom and Gigi and resides in East Ridge with her rescue pup, Princess.  While she grew up on a dairy farm in Northern Wisconsin, she proudly calls Tennessee her home.   She believes that all people of worthy of dignity, respect and compassion and her current favorite quote is “I cannot do all the good that the world needs. But the world needs all the good I can do.” (By Jana Stanfield)

AFWA is registered with the National Association of State Board of Accountancy (NASBA) as a sponsor of Continuing Professional Education (CPE) on the National Registry of CPE Sponsors. State Boards of Accountancy have final authority in the acceptance of individual courses of CPE credit. Complaints regarding registered sponsors may be submitted to the National Registry of Sponsors through its website: www.learningmarket.org.

Tickets

$30.00 Member Reservation

$35.00 Non Member Reservation

$0.00 First Time Guest Reservation

$15.00 Student Member Ticket