by Lynn Hamilton

Natalie Jayroe loved her job as president and CEO of America¹s Second Harvest of Coastal Georgia, serving Savannah and 20 other counties. She loved the opportunities it gave her to help people and, at night, she dreams she¹s back there, not even directing the place, but just helping out.

A little over a year ago, to solve a food bank cash flow problem that stemmed from bureaucratic foot dragging on the part of the state¹s Department of Human Resources (GHDR), Jayroe asked some of her vendors to reissue their invoices, putting a later date on them. Jayroe is quite sure that Georgia¹s other seven food banks did the same thing, because some of them were also faced with the identical cash flow problem emanating from GDHR.

When this accounting glitch turned up on Second Harvest¹s audit, it launched an exaggerated hue and cry in which the words ³fraud² and ³conspiracy² were used. The non-profit¹s board of directors met and Jayroe was asked for her resignation.

The Savannah Morning News issued several stories and editorials framing Jayroe as an incompetent manager and endorsing the food bank¹s decision to terminate her employment.

But Jayroe says that neither the food bank¹s board of directors nor the Savannah Morning News had the whole story. Most of the board members acted without giving her an opportunity to explain herself, she says. The Savannah Morning News made only one effort to interview her, leaving a message on her answering machine and never calling back.

After a considerable battle to get her job back and much soul searching, Jayroe decided to tell her story to the Tybee News. Here is the story of a woman who loved her job not wisely, but too well.

Program visionary

Jayroe had one of those cushy corporate jobs that recent business school grads dream of. She worked in sales for the Hyatt in downtown Savannah. Her office overlooked the Savannah River. She had a juicy expense account, travel opportunities, an excellent benefits package. But she left all that‹and took a pay cut‹to take a job as Executive Director at America¹s Second Harvest of Coastal Georgia.

What happened?

What happened is that, while she was working at the Hyatt, Jayroe saw a lot of food getting discarded. Where someone else would have just seen wasted food and a half empty glass, Jayroe saw an opportunity to recover food for the hungry, an opportunity to help people eat better, not in a third world country, but right here in America.

She went to work for Second Harvest as a volunteer and introduced the Prepared Food Recovery Program. From there, she went on to serve on the non-profit¹s board of directors.

When the executive director¹s job opened up, she accepted it. Though it meant less money than she was making at the Hyatt and the loss of her attractive benefits package, Jayroe says there was never any doubt in her mind that she wanted to ³be fully engaged² with the food bank. Even now, she doesn¹t look back at that decision with regret. ³It¹s an experience I don¹t know if I¹ll ever be able to replicate,² she says.

The years in which she directed the food bank were years of ³tremendous growth,² she says, citing a 686% growth in the non-profit¹s budget.

Jayroe never played it safe as the food bank¹s director. She admits that she didn¹t keep her eye on the bottom line. Instead, she liked to launch new and innovative programs to help people.

One such program was the Bread and Butter Cafe. The cafe, located on Gwinnett and East Broad in downtown Savannah, takes people who are difficult to employ and trains them in cooking and restaurant work. The cafe serves lunch to the public which gives trainees the opportunity to test their skills in on a real-world market. It also gives the public an opportunity to see the fruits of a successful job-training program.

The bread and butter cafe was a high ticket item for Second Harvest to carry. That became an issue when Jayroe¹s leadership came under fire.

Personality conflicts flare up

Under Jayroe¹s leadership, the food bank started bursting at its seams. It needed to move to a bigger building. But the food bank¹s board was not in unanimous agreement about where to move. Jayroe favored buying a new facility on President Street, opposite Kemira. Joe Rosenblum, who was then chairman of the food bank¹s board, seemed reluctant to make the move, Jayroe says.

In the end, the food bank went with Jayroe¹s recommendation and relocated to President Street, but in the process, says Jayroe, the board was split, some supporting her leadership while others did not.

The non-profit¹s treasurer Karen Stewart, in particular, was openly hostile toward Jayroe in board meetings, to the point where several people commented on it, Jayroe says. Stewart negatively critiqued Jayroe¹s accounts, but ³wouldn¹t tell me how to fix them,² she says.

The fire under Jayroe heated up some more when she criticized the food bank¹s new Chief Financial Director, Lewis Baxter, of not taking control of his department in his 90-day review. Baxter understood so little of the food bank¹s finances, he didn¹t even know how much money the non-profit had or which bills they could afford to pay, Jayroe indicates.

At one point, Baxter presented Jayroe with an invoice from Union Mission for services rendered to the Bread and Butter Cafe, saying that it needed to be paid immediately. Jayroe says she asked if there were sufficient funds in the agency¹s accounts to pay the bill as well as payroll and taxes, but Baxter did not know. So Jayroe authorized Baxter to pay the agency¹s staff and taxes and defer payment on the Union Mission bill, she says.

It turns out that, according to Jayroe, there was actually enough money in the food bank¹s accounts to pay the Union Mission bill as well as other immediate expenses.

³We could have done both,² she says.

But Jayroe¹s failure to pay the Union Mission bill became a prominent feature in Baxter¹s ensuing resignation letter, fired off to the board with a copy sent to the Savannah Morning News. In that letter, Baxter said that the food bank¹s accounts were in serious trouble and he used the phrase ³conspiracy to commit fraud² to describe a reimbursement snafu involving the State Nutrition Assistance Program.

What really happened with the State Nutrition Assistance Program?

The State Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) provides funds to purchase food for families with children 18 and under. It¹s a state program that disperses funds to food banks. In Georgia, SNAP money goes first to the Georgia Department of Human Resources. From there, some of it was dispersed to the Atlanta Community food bank which was, in its turn, under contract to channel funds to Second Harvest of Coastal Georgia and other food banks in Georgia.

Jayroe bought $100,000 in food in good faith, assuming the purchases would be reimbursed by SNAP, via the Atlanta food bank. But Second Harvest, along with Georgia¹s seven other food banks, hit a bump in the road when the Georgia Department of Human Resources, the state steward of SNAP funds, delayed its contract with the Atlanta food bank. The delay was caused by staff changes in that department, Jayroe says.

The Atlanta Community met with Georgia¹s other food banks to discuss the problem. At that meeting, Atlanta Community representatives said DHR¹s contract wouldn¹t be back dated beyond October, so the food Jayroe bought in July, August, and September of that year would not be reimbursed, as she hoped.

At that meeting, Jayroe says Atlanta Community representatives suggested asking vendors to change their invoice dates. So Jayroe returned to her job and asked vendors to reissue their invoices, billing the food bank at a later date. The vendors complied willingly.

Jayroe didn¹t think she was doing anything wrong. When the food bank¹s auditor spotted the discrepancy, he told her that such a practice could be subject to abuse.

So Jayroe sat down and wrote an 80-page manual on procedures that would prevent a reoccurrence of the same accounting measure.

Jayroe emphasizes that Second Harvest received SNAP funds from the Atlanta Community Food Bank (ACFB), not directly from the state or federal government. Second Harvest¹s contract was with the ACFB, not with the state. As such, Jayroe was answerable only to the ACFB for the date on her bills.

And the Atlanta Community Food Bank has registered no complaint against Jayroe. In fact, the Atlanta food bank¹s Executive Director Bill Bolling wrote a detailed letter to Second Harvest¹s board, asking them to reconsider Jayroe¹s resignation.

³My knowledge of Natalie¹s integrity suggests that she had the highest interests of the food bank and the people it serves at heart,² Bolling wrote, adding, ³Publicly accusing Ms. Jayroe of fraud where auditors have documented none, strikes me as rash and risky . . . It places this [Atlanta¹s] Food Bank¹s $4 million DHR contract in jeopardy.²

Jayroe¹s brother, Wes Alwan has been an aggressive advocate on Jayroe¹s behalf since her forced resignation from the food bank. Alwan says that the word ³fraud² can not be used to describe Jayroe¹s actions, respecting SNAP funds. Under Georgia law, fraud must involve ³damage to the plaintiff,² Alwan says. In this case, there is no damage and, for that matter, no plaintiff.

Jayroe also stands accused of operating Second Harvest in the red. Last year, Jayroe reports, the food bank had operating funds of $1.6 million. Because of another delayed government contract, the non-profit agency finished the year $11,000 in the red‹not unusual for a non-profit agency, Jayroe says, and certainly not unheard of among for-profit businesses.

Perhaps the biggest drain on the agency¹s financial resources was the Bread and Butter Cafe. The training program had its own budget which Second Harvest tracked for purposes of self study, but the cafe had to be subsidized by money from other sources. This, too, became an issue in the fracas surrounding Jayroe¹s resignation. But juggling financial resources from one pocket of the agency to another was neither illegal nor unusual, Jayroe says. There are programs that never pay for themselves. She cites the Brown Bag for the Elderly as one such program that depletes the agency¹s financial resources without returning any income.

Jayroe did not discuss her side of the story with the Savannah Morning News at least in part because she felt bound by a ³no disparagement² agreement that she and the board of directors signed upon her separation. The agreement clearly stipulates that the board will say nothing that could harm Jayroe¹s reputation, and that she will say nothing that will hurt the food bank or its board. Jayroe believes the food bank¹s board violated that agreement in further communication with the newspaper. And she believes that the food bank¹s failure to observe the terms of its contract now frees her to talk to the media. The Savannah Morning News declined to publish letters to the editor that defended Jayroe¹s leadership, she adds.

Jayroe feels battered by the events leading up to and following her resignation. But her experiences have failed to make her cynical about the work of such agencies as America¹s Second Harvest. In fact, her biggest frustration is that the negative publicity she received now makes it virtually impossible to get another full-time job in the local non-profit sector. She¹s working as a consultant for DC Central Kitchen, the organization that founded the community kitchen.

But she feels underutilized. And she desperately wants to help people.

³I like to work really, really hard. And I¹m not working hard enough,² she says. ³I¹m grieving because my work for Second Harvest wasn¹t done.²