Feeding America honors Rhonda P. Chafin for transforming rural hunger relief

Feeding America named Rhonda P. Chafin the 2026 John van Hengel Fellow during its annual conference in Dallas, giving its highest honor in food banking to a leader whose career has been built in rural Appalachia. The recognition also set Chafin apart as one of six network members honored this year for their impact on people facing hunger.

Chafin has spent more than 33 years advancing hunger relief across Northeast Tennessee and the wider Appalachian region. Feeding America said she helped turn Second Harvest Food Bank of Northeast Tennessee from a small affiliate into a fully independent food bank, and that annual food distribution grew from 1.3 million meals to nearly 16 million under her leadership. The food bank now reaches more than 340 distribution points, a scale that matters in a region where distance can be as much of a barrier as poverty.

The numbers point to more than growth. Feeding America said the organization kept service moving through COVID-19 and Hurricane Helene, while building mobile food pantries, child and senior programs, and a lunch program served with school buses. It also said the budget increased more than twentyfold while administrative costs stayed low, a sign that the operation did not just get bigger, it stayed disciplined while doing it.

That is the part that should matter to A Simple Gesture staff and volunteers. Rural hunger work is never just about giving food away. It is about route design, pickup reliability, and whether partner pantries trust that donations will arrive when promised. A Simple Gesture’s own model, with reusable green bags collected at the doorstep and delivered directly to pantry partners, runs on the same logic: near-zero overhead, strong volunteer follow-through, and local systems that fit the geography instead of fighting it. In that sense, Chafin’s career is a case study in how to build reach without losing the neighborhood feel that keeps people coming back.

The broader network makes the honor even more telling. John van Hengel, credited with helping create the modern food bank model, helped build a system that now includes more than 250 food banks, 20 statewide food bank associations, and 60,000 partner agencies, pantries, and meal programs. Chafin’s recognition says that in places far from major metros, the most important leadership skill is not visibility. It is building a hunger-relief system sturdy enough to keep serving when the weather turns, demand spikes, or the roads get long.