Soaring High to Stop Hunger

At first glance, Vicki Escarra's downtown Chicago office at Feeding America looks distinctly, well, Chicago. Large windows overlook the Chicago River, 20 stories below. Across the street, the new Trump International Hotel and Tower glistens in the sunlight.

A closer look, however, reveals Escarra's roots.

The Olympic torch she carried through the streets of Atlanta before the 1996 Games is mounted to a wall, the framed letter of citation close by. A photo of Escarra with a smiling former President Jimmy Carter peeks out from a bookshelf.

It's been five years since the former Delta executive packed up her belongings, said goodbye to the South and moved to the Midwest to take the helm at Feeding America. The nonprofit organization, where she is president and CEO, is the nation's largest domestic hunger charity, feeding millions of needy Americans through a vast network of food banks.

Her leadership, like her office, melds her past with her present. Educating the country about hunger has become a passion for Escarra, who believes her time at Delta and in Atlanta gave her the foundation to succeed.

"Everything in my career led me to this place," she says.

Since her arrival, she has led the organization through an amazing transformation and has helped turn it into the country's go-to charity. Her plans have resulted in a rebranding - complete with a name change, a new strategic plan and an unprecedented increase in corporate sponsorships.

With Escarra's vision, the organization has gone from serving 25 million people annually to 37 million. Feeding America now collects and distributes 2.8 billion pounds of food and grocery products a year, up from 2 billion five years ago. 

Partnerships with shows like Fox's "American Idol" and NBC's "The Biggest Loser" have brought public awareness to new heights. Actors Matt Damon and Ben Affleck have filmed public service announcements, and Escarra has made appearances with everyone from First Lady Michelle Obama to Sesame Street's Elmo, all in an effort to dispel stereotypes about hunger in America and to advance the cause.

"We've had a great run," she says. "It's been unreal."

With one in six Americans without access to healthy food and 14 million children living in food-insecure households, Escarra's entry into the nonprofit world could not have come at a better time.

 

From the airplane to the boardroom

The year was 1976 and Escarra had just earned a degree in psychology from Georgia State. Like many of her GSU peers, the Tucker, Ga., native had worked her way through school, doing everything from selling shoes to modeling to manning the floor at Rich's downtown department store.

"It definitely wasn't easy," she says. "But Georgia State was a really great fit for a working student and I made the right choice."

She always knew she wanted a career where she could make a difference, and soon after graduation, she applied and was accepted to the Peace Corps.

"I loved the idea of trying to help, trying to give back," she says.

Her first assignment was in Africa and she worried the political situation could be dangerous. So she and her best friend opted instead to become Delta flight attendants - just for a year, Escarra thought.

"I was just thinking it would be a way to relax and see the world," Escarra says.

Soon, however, fate intervened. Escarra found herself serving as an attendant on a Delta board of directors charter flight, where a chance encounter with Delta's then Chief Executive David Garrett set her on a different path. Garrett, no doubt impressed with Escarra's attitude, asked her what she wanted to do with her career.

"The Peace Corps and graduate school," she replied.

Garrett told Escarra that she should consider staying on board at Delta and invited her to meet with him personally the following week.

"Sure," Escarra remembers thinking, "he'll never take my call."

True to his word, Garrett met with her and told her about opportunities within Delta. She applied and was hired for a position in the airline's human resources department. Within just two years, she ascended to a manager's position in In-Flight services, and soon after, she became a director. She oversaw flight attendants for 10 years before being asked by Bob Coggin, then Delta's chief marketing officer, to bring her expertise to examine Delta's call centers for possible outsourcing. (Coggin, too, had moved up the Delta corporate ladder, having started his career as a ramp agent.) Reception among those working in the call centers, fearful they would lose their jobs, was less than warm, Escarra remembers.

"When I arrived, the director put me in a closet," she remembers, laughing. Undeterred, Escarra got to work, visiting all 26 call centers around the country and assessing what was working and what wasn't. She won over the employees and ultimately found efficiencies to make the centers run more smoothly.

As a result, her colleagues nominated her to run the 1996 Olympic torch relay, the only officer of the company who was asked.

"That's been a real mantra for me, to not forget my humble beginnings," she says. "I always try to be the people's leader."

Escarra then took her skills to 303 airports around the world, running Delta's operations and overseeing 27,000 employees. By 2001, she was part of the company's senior leadership team, serving as executive vice president-chief marketing officer.

She vividly remembers the morning of Sept. 11, 2001. The airline was the first to ground all of its aircraft in the aftermath. In the coming days, Escarra's job was to reassure Delta's employees and passengers that the airline would maintain operations. 

Delta offered a program that allowed passengers to convert frequent flyer miles to dollars to help, and she and CEO Leo Mullin flew to New York to present Mayor Rudy Giuliani with a check for $7 million for firefighters and police.

Escarra remembers Giuliani's calm demeanor and steady hand, even as he entered their meeting after attending his 13th funeral.

"He was a true leader," she says.

She stayed on at Delta for two more years, helping to guide the airline through some of the toughest times in the industry's history. But inside, the girl who had planned to join the Peace Corps after college kept looking for a way to do more.

 

Making a difference

After retiring in 2004, Escarra spent a year giving back to Atlanta, serving as chair of the Brand Atlanta Marketing Campaign for Mayor Shirley Franklin - an outreach of Escarra's time serving as chair of the Atlanta Convention and Visitor's Bureau.

She worked with a team of 40 professionals, including Ken Bernhardt, the Taylor E. Little Jr. Professor of Marketing at Georgia State, to develop a marketing and branding strategy for the city.

"Vicki is one of those people who can get a group of people from diverse backgrounds very excited about a mission and get them all contributing to the overall good of the organization," Bernhardt says. "She is a true leader who inspires people to want to do their best. She's also very creative and extremely well organized with a collaborative style."

The Brand Atlanta campaign was rewarding work, Escarra says. But then came the question: What to do next?

"I began pursuing ways to give back," she says. "I really wanted to be in the Peace Corps, but it was obvious to me that there was such a great need in the United States."

It wasn't long before her phone rang. A corporate search firm asked if she would be interested in taking over at America's Second Harvest, based in Chicago. She'd heard of the charity but didn't know much about it. She made a choice to leave her hometown, her comfort zone, her friends and her family and strike out in a new city.

"I didn't know a soul."

The first day, she admits, was a bit intimidating.

"I walked in the door and I remember seeing this dark office with a logo with a checkered tablecloth," she says. "I just thought, 'this is just not symbolic of what I want us to be.'"

As she'd done at Delta, Escarra got right to work.

With help from fellow seasoned marketing executives, she spearheaded a comprehensive rebranding effort for the 30-year-old nonprofit. She brought in Wendy MacGregor, an advertising agency veteran, and they began comprehensive studies looking at possible name and logo changes. Escarra and MacGregor listened to their audience, which overwhelmingly chose Feeding America.

Escarra believes that evolving from America's Second Harvest to Feeding America was a watershed moment for the organization. Finally, the public could understand exactly what the charity did from its name. 

Deals followed. The organization counts Walmart, General Mills, Kraft Foods, Kroger, United Airlines and PepsiCo among its long list of partners and contributors.

Feeding America now partners with "Idol Gives Back," the foundation arm of the popular Fox TV show "American Idol," and completes a "Pound for Pound Challenge" with NBC's "The Biggest Loser." Singer Tom Waits recently gave the organization access to one of his songs - the first time he's ever partnered with a charity. Singers Beyonce Knowles and Tim McGraw joined forces with Feeding America and General Mills to deliver more than three million meals to local food banks with the "Show Your Helping Hand" campaign.

But it's not just about the star power. Escarra has also worked to improve Feeding America's extensive food sourcing and distribution systems, bringing in more food and grocery products than ever before and efficiently distributing them to the network's 200 member food banks and the 61,000 agencies they serve. She has also made it a priority to improve the nutritional quality of distributed food through expanded produce and fresh-food initiatives.

Escarra also writes editorials reminding Americans about the very real issue of hunger. The recession has brought hunger to the forefront, with millions more Americans needing assistance than ever before, she says.

In May 2009, Michelle Obama and Jill Biden, wife of Vice President Joe Biden, joined Escarra at a Washington, D.C., food bank where they packed bags of food for more than 2,000 hungry children in the D.C. metropolitan area.

The power of what Escarra is doing now hit home for her not long ago on a trip to Las Vegas. While at a local elementary school meeting with the principal, Escarra said, she looked up to see a small boy patiently waiting outside the principal's office holding a large cardboard box. Confused, the principal walked out to ask the child what he needed.

The child explained that his mother had lost her job and they had nothing to eat. In the box were his toys. Could he sell them at school to buy food for his family?

"You cannot imagine the need," she says.

Escarra says she now travels even more than she did at Delta, crisscrossing the country to raise awareness and dollars for a cause that has become her life's work.

"There is absolutely no question in my mind I'm doing exactly what I'm supposed to be doing," she says.

Feeding america: Hunger and Poverty Facts Hunger is a reality for 1 in 6 Americans In 2010, 34 percent of all client households served by Feeding America had to choose between paying for food and paying for medicine or medical care In 2009, 50.2 million Americans lived in food-insecure households, 33 million adults and 17.2 million children In 2009, the prevalence of household food insecurity in suburban areas was 13.2 percent (6.4 million households) In 2010, an estimated 2.8 million rural households were considered food insecure In 2009, 3.4 million seniors 65 and older live in poverty 15.5 million children in the United States live in poverty In 2009, 65 percent of working families that received assistance from the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) were single-parent families Sources: http://feedingamerica.org/faces-of-hunger/hunger-101.aspx

Georgia ranks third among five states in the U.S. that experience statistically significant higher household food insecurity. Arkansas 17.7% Mississippi 17.1% Georgia 15.6% Texas 17.4% North Carolina 14.8% Source: http://feedingamerica.org/faces-of-hunger/hunger-101/hunger-and-poverty-statistics.aspx