Good News York by Growth Mode Content - GNY EP.142 | Feat. Jack Pflanz from Erin's Angels

Episode Date: January 20, 2026

Feeding the Future: Jack Pflanz Talks Erin's Angels Central New York In this special Tuesday edition of Good News York, host Mike Brindisi welcomes Jack Pflanz, Director of Fund Development and Communications for Erin's Angels of Central New York. Jack shares his personal story of overcoming food insecurity and details the inspiring work done by Erin's Angels to combat child hunger. The episode dives into the organization's mission, its impactful programs like the Phoenix Program and Feeding the Future Scholarship, and upcoming events aimed at supporting their cause. Listeners learn how to get involved through attending events, volunteering, and signing a petition for the New York State Children's Bill of Rights. 00:00 Introduction and Special Guest Announcement 00:33 Jack Pflanz's Background and Journey 04:43 Understanding Food Insecurity 07:04 Erin's Story and the Mission of Erin's Angels 10:13 Programs and Initiatives of Erin's Angels 13:26 Challenges and Community Support 15:27 Surge in Demand for Services 15:54 Event Planning and Fundraising 16:46 Upcoming Events and Fundraisers 20:22 Volunteer Opportunities and Community Involvement 24:01 Long-term Goals and Success Stories 26:29 Final Thoughts and Call to Action

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Start free at RSS.com. Hello and welcome to a Tuesday edition of Good News York, sponsored by Ads on the Go. Get Ads on the go.com. Shout out to Zach. This is a very special episode. I am your host, Mike Brindisi. You can follow me on all socials at Mike B TV.

And remember, we are on all socials at Good News York, good newsyork.com. New episodes, Monday through Thursday, 5 p.m. Eastern. As I said, a very special episode. I'm joined by a very special person who works for a very special organization. And that organization is Aaron's Angels of Central New York. With me, I have the director of fun development and communications, Jack Flans. Thank you, right?

Jack Flans, thank you. And shout out to our producer, director, Danny Tripodi on the ones and twos. Again, I don't know what ones in two. I hear the kids say it, you know. Jack, you work for an amazing organization, but you're an amazing person as well. And I feel like in this industry with what you do, you kind of have to be an amazing person and selfless. And that's exactly what you are. We talked about your background kind of off the air.

But I want to talk about your background first because it plays a huge role in this whole story. So you're now, as I said, the director of fun development and communication for Aaron's Angels. But let's go back in time. And I'd love to hear your story about how you got to this point. Well, first let me say you don't do this. kind of work for the income. You do it for the outcome. Oh, I love that. Right. Wow. And so I grew up in food insecurity. I grew up in the projects on the south side of Utica. My parents in their infinite wisdom thought moving me out of the best school district in the city to the worst school district

in the city in Corn Hill was an upgrade. So growing up in that tumultuous time in the 80s, in Corn Hill, I experienced food insecurity firsthand. I went to bed hungry more nights than I care to remember. And, you know, my household was a hostile household. I walked on pins and needles around my dad. He was an angry guy. You know, it was a love-hate relationship. You know, I had a lot of love for the guy, but he was a complicated guy.

And he had a hard, hard life. and he wasn't happy about it. But, you know, there were also times when things were good, and he was a great guy. And so it's a hard thing to balance. But, you know, my whole career, I've always worked in communications and in fundraising and development for nonprofit organizations. And in March, I was working with the United Way of the Mohawk Valley in development and communications. And that came to a stop, that came to an end.

and I was looking for something to do while I was looking for work, because I'm the kind of person that if I don't have a daily purpose, if I don't get up and have something to do that means something, my depression takes a hit. Boy, you and I on the same page. Yeah. And so one day I decided to put a message out on Facebook looking for someone to take a look at my resume.

And the founder of Aaron's Angels, which is a whole other wonderful story, Sheila Dion popped up and said, I'd be happy to take a look at it for you. So the one I looked into Sheila, I found Aaron's Angels of CNY, and I looked at it, and, you know, it just resonated with me.

Aaron's story, just food insecurity, hostile environment, being treated the way she did, just resonated with me to my soul. So I thought I have to be involved. So I volunteered as communications director from March until September,

and then in September, the board approved the salary and brought me aboard full time. Congratulations. What a story. And I said you and I are connecting on so many levels because, first of all, my father grew up in East Utica. And I'm very aware of the area that he grew up in and the life that he had. So I just completely understand that. And I also understand the wanting to have a purpose thing. do you feel that doing this work almost helps you heal a little bit?

Oh, yeah, absolutely. I think back on the different times that I experienced food insecurity, and I think to myself, this is my chance to make sure that other kids don't have to live the way I do. Jack, don't make me cry on a Tuesday. Let's talk about food insecurity. You know, you and I know what that means, but not a lot of people do. Can you kind of just talk about what that definition means? Sure.

So food insecurity is basically the feeling of not knowing when or where your next meal is coming from. So I just recently addressed a group of people in a setting. It was a check presentation, a donation being given to Ernst Angels. And there were probably 50 people in the room. And the first thing I did was asked how many people in the room this morning have kids? And most people raised their hands. And I asked how many of your kids had breakfast today? how many kids are going to have lunch today because you made it happen and how many of your kids when you get home tonight you're going to be able to have dinner with imagine being a kid coming home on a Friday and there's no food and then having to start Monday morning having to learn having to concentrate having to study and you're hungry and I tell you know there's times at the dinner table where my son or my daughter will turn their nose to whatever dinner I or my wife made and I'm always quick to correct them and say I

I don't think you understand. There are kids right now in this town that aren't having any dinner. And you need to appreciate that stuff. And let me give you three words, Mike. One in five. One in five kids in Central New York go to bed hungry on any given night. That's way too many. That's God awful.

Yeah. I have the same situation with my daughter. I have a 24-year-old daughter who's a graduate student now at Sunnihuisal. And thanks. And when she was growing up, I had her about half time. And I made a lasagna one day. And I put the lasagna in front of where we sat down to dinner. And she looked in and said,

Daddy, I want something else. And said, sorry, kids, there's nothing else. So, well, I don't want this. Well, that's how we have. I made her sit there for a good hour. And I caught grief on social media about it. But after about an hour, she ate it. And after that, and she was only like five or six at the time,

she would eat anything I put in front of her. She would try every food under the sun. She tried Korean food, Japanese food, Chinese food. I wasn't going to deal with one of these. kids that just eats chicken fingers and macaroni and cheese their entire childhood. Yeah. I love it. Aaron's Angels of CNY, a nonprofit organization dedicated to feeding children in need for school-based programs. We're going to get into that. But I feel like I'd be remissed if I didn't talk about Aaron and Aaron's story. Are you comfortable talking

about that? Sure. Yeah. It's hard. It's an emotional story. I gave a presentation last week and I heard later that I brought people to tears just by talking about her story. So Aaron was a little girl who was in the Phoenix School District, and I didn't know her, but working in this position, I've talked to people who did know her, and there were reports of her going through garbage cans. You know, when they, when Aaron was murdered by her stepbrother, her stepbrother served nine years. The parents got two years for neglect. And that's a whole other part of Aaron's Angels where we're trying to pass the New York State Children's Medal of Rights to establish a minimum scheme to care for all children and increase the punishment and penalties for anyone

to commit abuse against children 14 years or under. So that's a whole other. We can do a whole week's episodes on that. But so when they did the autopsy on Aaron, they found no food in her digestive system. It takes two days, Mike, two days for food to process out of your digestive system. And apparently she lived in what would be considered by most people a cage in her bedroom. Okay. You mean like an actual cage? An angel cage, an animal cage. Yeah, she was kept in her bedroom like that.

And the condition she lived in, to say it was squalered would be an understanding. statement. Animal feces everywhere. It was just horrible. And, you know, if we'd had the New York State Children's Bill of Rights today, or back then rather, Eric could very well still be with us. Oh my God. And so we are doing everything we can do in her memory to assure that other kids don't have to live the way she did. Wow. Well, Jack, that was way worse than I thought. I thought it was. you know, that is heartbreak. As a human being, that's heartbreaking. But as you know, as a parent, it always, it hits a little harder.

That's disgusting. And this is Good News York. So here's the positive spin on it. This is why Aaron's Angels of Central New York exists. Yeah. What is the mission statement of Aaron's Angels? Well, I've never been able to give it word for word. But basically what we're trying to do is bring together the people, the resources, and the means.

to feed the future of Central New York in order to empower kids to be a kid, to live life and not have to worry about food. No kids should ever have to go hungry. No kid should ever have to worry about going hungry. Absolutely. So we're just trying to bring people and resources together to make sure kids can thrive as kids, but also can thrive as adults. That's wonderful. It's, you know, if you go on to the website or any of the social media for Aaron's Angels of C&Y, it's overwhelming in a positive way because there's it's not it's not like you're just out there

giving food away there there are many different programs the children's bill of rights the the phoenix program summer meals uh you guys are doing so much can you talk a little bit about some of the programs and what you guys do on a day to day basis sure so one thing i'd love to talk about is our scholarship program sure so we provide two one thousand dollars scholarship scholarship The two Oswego County High School seniors. One senior is from the Phoenix area, mandatory, then the other can be from Oswego County. And, you know, this past year, we gave out two scholarships.

One was for trade school. The gentleman wanted to go to trade school. Another gentleman, his name was Douglas, who is a volunteer for us, is studying web design. And he was in the program. He got the meal bags every weekend. And so he kind of went through and understood what we were doing. And because of the mealback program, he had food on the weekends.

And now he's a college student studying design. And we have an event coming up on February 7th called the Purple Party at Monterey's at 6 o'clock. And the proceeds of that event fund our scholarship program. Amazing. Yeah. And so the Phoenix program you talked about is the kind of the core, the meat and potatoes of what we do. we have volunteers who come to the Michael Maroon Elementary School every other Tuesday, and they spend hours packing food bags for families in need who are facing food insecurity.

Once those food bags are packed, those bags go to the teachers. So when the kids are out of class, if they're in gym, if they're in lunch or recess, those food bags find their way into the backpacks and go home on Fridays. And they do that for anonymity. So there's no bullying. There's no teasing of kids who whose family have struggle with food insecurity. And so, you know, we're all about inclusion. And we want kids to not have to deal with food and being hungry and food insecurity,

but we also don't want to have them have to deal with being singled out by other kids. Yeah. Right. That's beautiful. What do you think the biggest, I mean, there's so many, but is there one big issue that I, that you think might be at the root of all the food insecurity out there for these young children? There's one issue I can zero in on, but it's such a complicated issue. Sure.

Poverty. Of course. It really comes down to that. I agree. I'm in full belief that, you know, these socialist safety nets are set up. You know, you hear people, as soon as they can, hear safety social nut, they say it's communism. And we're like, what? Yeah. You know, safety social nuts are are so important. Yeah. Because no child and certainly no human should,

should go hungry or go sick because they can't afford health care. And that's, as you said, that's a, that's a whole other issue. Yeah. Do you, do you find that, because you guys are completely self-funded, do you find that some of the changes in state and federal government, Did those directly affect your organization? No, not really. You know, we are, well, I guess, actually, let me take that back. So yes, because when we were facing SNAP reductions a few months ago, if SNAP goes away or if SNAP gets limited, that puts an extreme amount of pressure

and stress on programs like ours. Sure. Right. So we have a program called our community games. giveaway. We get donations of boxes and boxes of items from Amazon every month. There's nothing to get 30, 40, 50 boxes of random items from... You're listening to a podcast right now. Driving, working out, walking the dog. If you're into podcasts, chances are you have something to say too. With RSS.com, starting your own is free and easy.

upload an episode and we distribute it to Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, and hundreds more. Track your listeners, see where they're from, and start earning from ads like this, even with just 10 listeners a month. If you've been thinking about starting a podcast, this is your sign. Start free at RSS.com. Amazon, we get everything from food to health and beauty aids to cleaning supplies to car parts. And you're working directly with Amazon through this? Yeah, that's amazing. Amazon donates to nonprofits, you know, all over.

And so we have a gentleman named Chuck. He goes to Chuck Gorman. He goes to Amazon with a van, loads up the van with these boxes, brings these boxes to Aaron's Angels, unloads them into our office. We have volunteers who come in and sort these products out, categorize them, and then we do giveaways. And we have one coming up Thursday night.

And we invite people from different areas to come in. And it's usually a two-hour process and they can bring two grocery bags, reusable grocery bags. And they have seven minutes to go through and pick out whatever they need. Well, that's fun. It's like supermarket sweep. Remember that? Exactly.

Yep. But in a positive way, you know, helping people. And so when the whole snap thing was going down, we did one of these giveaways. And it was the second highest number of people. we had come to one of those events. Wow. Sixty-five people showed up. Usually the average was about 40.

Wow. So when the state or the federal government, when things happen where benefits get, you know, either stopped or limited, we see a tremendous amount of increased demand. Yeah. That makes a complete sense. Yeah.

And as you said, we're completely self-funded, so that demand doesn't come with any funds to meet that demand. Right, right. Right. Speaking of events, you are here. We do want to promote a couple events coming up, but you guys do a lot of events.

Yeah. What goes into the planning process for that? Who's in charge of that? And, you know, you guys come up with some amazing ideas. Talk a little bit about that process. So we have an incredible board of directors. And our board is completely volunteer. And so we have folks who are in charge of different events throughout the year.

And we have a fundraising committee. that I sit on. And the fundraising committee meets once a month, and we assign tasks the different people, and we put these events together. And so this particular event with the Syracuse Crunch was an opportunity I came across a few months ago. I reached out. I found out they have a whole program to support local nonprofit organizations. And we have a fundraising game Hockey for Hope on Saturday night on the 24th, 7 o'clock. We have a link. It's errandsangels.com slash crunch where people can buy $22 tickets, which is an affordable ticket for a sporting event. Absolutely.

And it's a game between the Syracuse Crunch and the Utica Comets. So I chose that game purposely so we can market it to both areas. You know, I could appeal to the Syracuse Crunch fans and I could appeal to the Rican Comet fans. Yeah, absolutely. And so we get a percentage back of every ticket that is. sold through that link based on how many tickets we sell. And we're going to have a table in the concourse. There's going to be an in-game silent auction through the crunch.

We're going to have four baskets that we're going to auction off. And the Syracuse Crunch will have some items that are going to auction off. And all those proceeds come back to us. But at our table, we're going to be auctioning off four Caribbean vacations. Wow. Yeah. And so you can come to our table. You can write in your bid and bid on.

on those trips. That's amazing. Yeah. Yeah. And just again, to plug that, Aaron's Angels of Central New York will partner with the Syracuse Crunch for a hockey night fundraiser on January 24th at 7 p.m. That's aaron's angels.com backslash crunch. But also another one you guys have going on, you mentioned it earlier, you're going to

hold your annual purple party on Saturday, February 7th to honor Aaron Maxwell's heavenly birthday and raise funds for the organizations feeding the future scholarship program. And that's going to be at Monterey's, located at 68 County Route 10, number 90. And that starts at 6 p.m. Talk a little bit about that, that event. So we're going to have a spaghetti dinner, $10 per person or $5 for kids, five and under. We're going to have music. We're going to have a quartet from the Oswego Valley Snowbelters.

They're to entertain. We're going to have other bands. We're going to have the cool kids that are going to make an appearance. They're a great band that also plays another event that we've done in the past. We're going to, it's just going to be a great time. We're going to have food, we're going to have music, we're going to have entertainment. And we're going to have a purple contest, a purple costume contest. Yeah.

So we did an event back in November called Friendsgiving, right around Thanksgiving. And we so many people come in and have such a great time. So we're excited. We have those two events and then we have other events that are happening throughout the month too. So in late March, we do our volunteer recognition dinner where we give out volunteer awards. So, you know, we have volunteers who work so hard for us all year long. We need to show them love too. Absolutely.

And so with the hockey game though, we produced a video. that i did send you folks it's a promo video where a gentleman named dan fraule of an emotion media volunteers his time and he we set up a shoot at a hockey rink with a couple of hockey players 10-year-old hockey players and that's to promote the hockey game so you know we have people from all walks of life who volunteer and help us out that's amazing jack uh obviously people can go to these events the one on February 7th, the one on January 24th, that's one way people can help is by attending these events. But because your organization is doing so much, tell people, you know, if anyone's listening or watching and they're like, man, I really want to get involved. Other than donating, what are you looking

for and how can people get involved? Yeah. So we have something going on right now. There's information on our website and on Facebook called our Super Bowl, S-O-U-P-R. Yes. I'm a big fan of puns, Jack. I love that. Me too, man. So, you know, we're looking for people who want to conduct food drives of cans of soup. And, you know, we're doing it strategically now because what's coming up, of course, Super Bowl. I love it. Right. So we're always looking for volunteers.

We have, so we have committees of people who work on different things. So we have an advocacy committee who's working on the New York State Children's Bill of Rights. We can absolutely use people on that committee. We have a committee for our scholarship fund. We love to have more people involved in that. We have our fundraising committee. We have a finance committee. We are also looking for people to join our board of directors.

So if you have it, and you don't necessarily have to have experience in fundraising, you have to have a passion for wanting to make a difference in the lives of other people. Right. You have to want to try to increase quality of life for others. That's basically what we're looking for. So we need volunteers. we can, we absolutely at events, also on committees, on our board of directors. And if somebody wants to get involved just running a food drive in their business or in their

company, you know, call us. Our website, our information is on the website. We'll figure something out for you. Yeah. Well said. Well said. And you're right. You know, it's not that you have to come from a background of food insecurity or abuse to do

the job, but you do have to want to make a difference. It's not a collective paycheck kind of thing. Right. And it shows with your heart and your story. And I just so much respect. I appreciate that. Give us the plugs. Where can people go, you know, whether you want to plug the events again.

But, you know, websites, social media, donation links. Go ahead. So, Aaronangles.com. Yeah. Right. We're on Facebook. We're on Instagram. We're on Twitter.

We're on YouTube. We recently have. a volunteer, create a TikTok page, which I'm, at my age, at this point in my life, I'm trying to figure out how to work it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So really, you can get all the information you need from our website. You can reach me by email at jack at errandsangels.com. My phone number is 315-374-0693.

Giving it right out. Send me an email. Go to our website. Give me a call. Send me a smoke signal. I'll get back to you. your pigeons. Yeah. The telegram, Western Union, whatever it takes.

Amazing. But we are all over social media. We're on the web. So there's no way you can't get a hold of us. Amazing. You're an amazing guy. Jack Flans, director of fund development and communications at Aaron's Angels feeding the future of Central New York. Remember, two events coming up. Syracuse Crunch hockey night fundraiser January 24th at 7 p.m. And also on February 7th, it is Aaron's Angels of CNY, kind of celebrating Aaron Maxwell's heavenly birthday and raising funds for the organization through the Feeding the Future Scholarship Program at Monterey's. Jack, any final thoughts? Anything you want to say? You know, I just want to say what we're trying to do is feed the future of Central New York. We're trying to build the infrastructure so that we're not just feeding kids today. Your donation today feeds kids tomorrow. We want to

kids today, but we want to feed kids 20 years from now. So we're working on the financial infrastructure and everything we need to do to keep this going, not just today, tomorrow, next week, next month, but 20 years from now. That's awesome. That's so well said. Because in the moment, it is great to take care of people and children in the moment who are going through food insecurity. But I love that you guys, you think of long term, of the long term issue, not just in the moment. Yeah. And you take care of both. Yeah. And So we have kids who were in the program, and now they're in college. How does that feel?

Right. To see these success stories, that must be the payoff, right? Yeah, absolutely. And the gentleman I'm referring to, Douglas, what a great kid. He actually came to our friends a giving event and volunteered at the event for about eight, eight hours, good eight, ten hours. And we had, we recently had a seminar where we brought in companies from all over Central New York to explain what the impact of hunger is in our community, we had Douglas come and do a presentation and talk about his story. So on a dime, he's willing to come back and do what he can to help

make sure that kids didn't, you know, that kids have a future the way he does. I mean, you know, if there is a God, you're doing God's work, Jack. I mean, the full circle moment, you know, for you, of what you went through in your childhood and what you're accomplishing now. And then to see, like you said, there's a Douglas. Douglass. Yeah. Seeing him come full circle, it just must be so much pride. He's an amazing kid.

And I just can't say enough about him. And I'm just so happy that he has, he's working towards something going into his future. Yeah. Well, listen, from all of us here, Good News York, thank you for coming on. You embody what this show is about. And we are happy to help get the word out. Aaron's Angels of Central New York. email Jack, Jack at arensangels.com.

Remember, I plug the two events, but you can go to all of their social media websites, get involved in any way you can, truly making a difference in central New York and in the world. You know what? There's one more thing I want to talk about. We have a petition on our website, our change.org petition. We're looking for people to sign that petition so that we can show lawmakers that residents of New York State want reform as it applies to laws that apply to children. So we're trying to pass this New York State Children's Bill of Rights.

We need people that go to our website, go to that change.org petition, sign it. I love that. And I'll be, I, you have my word as soon as I'm done here. I'm going to go sign that petition. Fantastic. Thank you. Because kids, some of them, if not all of them, they don't, they don't have the ability to speak up. And sometimes we have to speak up for them. And that's what you're doing.

Yeah. That's what you're doing. So they don't have a. voice. We are their voice. You are their voice. And I can't thank you enough for coming on the show. Jack Flans, director, fun development and communications for Aaron. Aaron's Angels, head to aaron's angels.com for more information and how you can help. And with that, another episode of GNY, Good News York. I'm your host, Mike Brindisi. You can follow me on socials at Mike BTV. You can follow us at Good News York or Good NewsYork.com. Sponsored by Ads on the Go. Get ads on the go.

new episodes Monday through Thursday, 5 p.m. Eastern, where I just mentioned, and we will see you tomorrow. Jack. Every child deserves the chance to play without worry. But in central New York, thousands of children are facing something tougher than any opponent on the ice. When a child is hungry, it's harder to concentrate, harder to learn, harder to just be a kid. Yet one in five children in our community don't know where their next meal is coming from. Irons Angels is fighting food insecurity right here in CNY, and you too can join the fight against childhood hunger. Join us January 24th as the crunch face off against the Utica

comments. A percentage of all ticket sales directly benefit Erin's Angels. Together, we can keep kids in the game. You're listening to a podcast right now. Driving, working out, walking the dog. If you're into podcasts, chances are you have something to say too. With RSS.com, starting your own is free and easy. Upload an episode and we distribute it to Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, and hundreds more. Track your listeners, see where they're from, and start earning from ads like this. Even with just 10 listeners a month, if you've been thinking about starting a podcast, this is your sign. Start free at RSS.com.