JENNINGS TO RECEIVE NATIONAL HONOR

Former Executive Director of Community Action Lehigh Valley Named to National “Hall of Fame”

The National Community Action Foundation has named the former executive director of Community Action Lehigh Valley to its “Hall of Fame.” Alan Jennings worked at CALV for 41 years, serving as the nonprofit’s executive director for 32 of those years. He left the organization in 2021 due to an ongoing battle with Parkinson’s that limited his ability to handle the multiple stresses of the agency’s work. He was succeeded by Dawn Godshall, who nominated him for the elite recognition.

According to Godshall, Jennings was the visionary who built the agency into a powerhouse, making it one of the most prominent Community Action Agencies in the nation. “He affected countless lives through his dedication to our community. His induction into the National Community Action Foundation Hall of Fame is a testament to his remarkable contributions and the lasting legacy he left behind. Without his leadership, the Lehigh Valley would be a much different place,” Godshall said.

CALV is one of more than 1,100 Community Action Agencies that serve low-income people throughout the nation. Thirteen individuals were named to the Hall of Fame out of thousands of possible awardees who served since Congress passed the Economic Opportunity Act of 1964. CALV was founded in December, 1965. During its first 15 years, the agency’s record was spotty. Jennings joined the agency as an employment counselor in December, 1980. In 1982, the agency was almost abolished due to weak performance. Jennings was promoted to a position that planned and implemented new programming that enabled the agency to be removed from a sanction status that was imposed by the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania when Congress gave administrative responsibility to states. The agency laid off seven of its 16 employees and shut down its ineffective programs. Its budget of just $500,000 came almost entirely from public sources.

The first new initiative he created was the Lehigh Valley Food Bank, which was renamed Second Harvest Food Bank in the early 1990’s. Jennings was 24 when it made its first distribution. The program now serves six counties and has distributed more than 200 million pounds of food to its network of 200 nonprofits that collectively serve 100,000 people per month. When Jennings left the organization, its budget exceeded $30 million, with barely 20% coming from government sources, unprecedented in the Community Action world.

Today, the agency operates the Sixth Street Shelter, one of the largest shelters for homeless families in Pennsylvania, which includes two long-term transitional housing programs.

The agency has done extensive work revitalizing neighborhoods in the downtown neighborhoods and the commercial districts they surround in all three cities and in the Slate Belt boroughs of Pen Argyl, Bangor, Wind Gap and Portland.

Extensive work has been done revitalizing and weatherizing the housing stock, helping families buy their first home, saving families from foreclosure and fighting predatory lending.

The agency has also provided entrepreneurial training to prospective and existing entrepreneurs and its federally-certified community development financial institution, the Rising Tide Community Loan Fund, has lent more than $10 million to businesses that were ineligible for bank financing.

Under Jennings’ leadership, the agency had an extensive portfolio of advocacy success, including the referenda that led to the creation of the Green Future Fund and Allentown’s rental licensing, the Homeowners Emergency Mortgage Assistance Program, the State Food Purchase Program, breaking up a mortgage fraud conspiracy, increases in the minimum wage, pressing banks to extend more credit to low-income families and their neighborhoods, and challenging Realtors to stop discriminatory practices in the City of Allentown.

“There is a culture in this community that is receptive to understanding its weaknesses and finding solutions. We had thousands of donors, volunteers and hardworking staff as well as allies in government who contributed to those efforts. Without them, nothing would have happened,” Jennings said.

Jennings has been quoted in news stories from all over the world, including Japan, Portugal, Switzerland, Germany, Scotland and France. He was also used by such news organizations as the Washington Post, Chicago Tribune, the Wall Street Journal, American Banker and Al Jazeera in addition to the Lehigh Valley’s news outlets. He has been honored with dozens of awards at the local, state and national level. Jennings will receive his latest honor at a ceremony in the Regency Ballroom in the Hyatt Regency on New Jersey Avenue in Washington, DC, at 9:15 AM, on Thursday, March 13.