By Jillian Diamond
As Silver Spring-based Manna Food Center celebrates its 40th anniversary, CEO Jackie DeCarlo is celebrating her 10th year with the nonprofit, overseeing food distribution and advocacy work. Manna’s goal is “eliminating hunger in Montgomery County through community-based food distribution, education and advocacy.”
“We have a great team, and my job is to make sure that they have the resources that they need to do their jobs well to fulfill our mission,” she said.
DeCarlo, 57, is originally from New Jersey but grew up in Atlanta. She had been involved in community service since early in life, but spent her early career as an elementary school teacher. But DeCarlo said she began to feel burnt out by her work in education. A move to Montgomery County brought with it new opportunities.
“When I moved to Montgomery County with my wife, it seemed like a good time to see if I could help my local community with some of the skills and perspectives that I had learned, on a broader, more global or national scale,” DeCarlo explained. “The stereotype about Montgomery County is that it’s a very affluent area, but I learned that there were really wide and disturbing wealth gaps and income gaps and that the diversity of the population wasn’t well understood or maximized.”
Since then, DeCarlo has worked as a leader at Manna to organize workshops and community education opportunities, as well as communicating with vendors who provide them with charitable food donations. Five years ago, she oversaw the move of the organization’s headquarters from Gaithersburg to Silver Spring.
“The decision to move to the east part of the county was intentional,” DeCarlo noted. “It’s an area with a lot of diversity, but not always enough access to food assistance. A lot of folks come here to have opportunities for advancement in their work and raise the kids and enjoy all the benefits of the DMV, and our job is to help them do that without having to worry about where their next meal is coming from.”
Manna distributes food to more than 30,000 Montgomery County residents a year. Their 2022 annual report states that they distributed 3.8 million pounds of food over the course of the fiscal year.
DeCarlo is also involved in community organizations, such as Leadership Montgomery and Nonprofit Montgomery. She uses her experience at Manna to support other nonprofits in Montgomery County.
