Marie Baxter on Catholic Charities of Northern Nevada

It takes a lot of work by a lot of people to provide over 1,000 hot meals a day to people in Reno at the St. Vincent's Dining Room and the Nevada CARES Campus. It also takes a lot to manage an endless stream of items donated by our community that work their way into new apartment kits or onto St Vincent thrift store shelves. And the pantries! It definitely isn't easy providing hundreds of boxes of food to families across Northern Nevada every single day.

Catholic Charities of Northern Nevada does it all and more, and has been a primary provider of these type of services in the area for over 80 years. On this episode of Renoites, we're joined the CEO of that organization, Marie Baxter. Marie has been with CCNN for 8 years and has a long history in the Reno non-profit sector, including a decade with the Reno Rodeo Foundation.

Conor and Marie talked about the variety of services that CCNN provides to the community, and how those services work to address both immediate and long term needs of people experiencing poverty.

Some of the topics on this episode include:

• the stigma-reducing benefits of a "client choice" food pantry instead of receiving a prepared box of food
• the changes that came from moving homeless services from the Record Street shelter, to the Reno Event Center, to the newly constructed CARES campus during COVID
• why Catholic Charities is so experienced in managing STUFF, all the tangible items from food to furniture to personal care items
• sober housing and providing work opportunities to people exiting treatment facilities or the criminal justice system
• CCNN's brand new new Elevating Families program, intended to disrupt the cycle of generational poverty
• what the local media gets right and wrong when reporting on homelessness and poverty
• and so much more!

Renoites is a weekly interview show hosted by Conor McQuivey and featuring guests from Northern Nevada. Topics include news and politics, social issues, arts and culture, businesses and nonprofits, and much more! Be sure to subscribe wherever you get podcasts.

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This episode was recorded at the National Automobile Museum in Reno, Nevada. You can learn more about the NAM and buy tickets here!