Everyone jokes the intern will return one day to run the office. Shannon Maynard, ’97, confirms that prediction. She’s had a nearly 20-year career in public service, including her new position as executive director of the Congressional Hunger Center. Maynard runs a team focused on creating the next generation of leaders in the fight to end hunger with an intentional focus on making sure leaders are equipped with the knowledge and ability to bridge practice and policy.
She first came to the Congressional Hunger Center through a Bonner Scholars internship the summer after her first year at Richmond. Her journal of that experience recently reminded her of what she gained: "It challenged me to look at and better understand why people were hungry, and the complexities of why we haven't addressed this issue throughout the U.S. and the world."
Maynard says the Bonner Scholars program — and being able to volunteer in the community and apply that experience in the classroom — gave her the confidence effect significant change in her own spheres of influence.
She came back from that summer a passionate advocate on campus for hunger and homelessness issues. After graduation, she returned to the Hunger Center as an Emerson Fellow, spending a year working with local poverty alleviation organizations and receiving leadership training.
By design, Emerson Fellows experience poverty wages firsthand and interact with those benefiting from food banks, childhood nutrition programs, and other social services.
"I can remember my parents thought I was crazy that after graduating from college, I wanted to go and live on an allowance of about $8,000 a year,” Maynard says. “But collecting and hearing the stories of individuals was transformative. It helped me dismantle some of the myths that get perpetuated in this country around why people are poor: that it’s a lack of initiative, versus what I saw, which was a lack of opportunity."
Maynard came away from the fellowship wanting to help other people see themselves as change makers, both the individuals who receive social services and other young people. Now, as the Hunger Center’s new executive director, she is preparing to tackle hunger and homelessness head-on.
"In the United States, when you look at who is most likely to be impacted by food insecurity, we’re talking about children, seniors, and people of color,” she says. "By not acknowledging and looking at those populations that are most at risk, which involves having difficult conversations around race, equity, and oppression, we are doing a disservice to ourselves in terms of how we’re going to attack hunger."
