Houston Food Bank Promotes Katherine Tong to Director of Volunteer Services

HOUSTON, TX -- Houston Food Bank is pleased to announce the promotion of Katherine “Kat” Tong to Director of Volunteer Services for the non-profit organization.

In her new role, Tong will be responsible for leading all aspects of the Volunteer Services department including the expected transition back to the organization’s pre-COVID levels of volunteers, and will oversee the commencement of a USDA clean room in April to increase donations and distribution of much-needed meats.

Tong started with the Houston Food Bank in August 2019 as a Food for Change Economic Partnerships Coordinator. Food for Change is the food bank’s innovative strategy that looks and works beyond emergency food assistance to address the root causes of hunger. In October 2019, Tong was promoted to the Food for Change Economic Partnerships Manager. In her role, she has established and developed relationships with Food for Change partners, markets, researchers, and service providers to successfully implement food interventions. During her tenure, she has created, developed, and standardized Food for Change economic partnership processes and procedures. Tong has led the implementation of various Feeding America pilots, the Household Empowerment Pilot and the Economic Shock Pilot. At the start of the pandemic, she also oversaw a volunteer production project at the United Airlines Cargo Center resulting in more than 2.2 million pounds of food being sorted and distributed over a three-month period, and also managed the partnership with CrowdSource Rescue to facilitate no-contact food deliveries for elderly and homebound individuals.

Tong studied at The University of Texas at Austin where she received her Bachelor’s Degree in Psychology, a Minor in Kinesiology and Certified Business Foundations from the UT McCombs School of Business. She was a member of the Phi Beta Kappa Honor Society, the UT Women’s Rowing Team and the UT Women’s Club Volleyball Team.

After graduation, Tong spent six months in Nanjing, China teaching English at an elementary school and a Community Center. She was later a writing teacher at KIPP Nashville College Prep and then spent three years at the Chinese Community Center in Houston in various roles including Housing Program Manager. After that, Tong was an International Recruitment Specialist at the University of Houston before joining the Houston Food Bank.

For more information on Houston Food Bank and its programs, and to sign up to volunteer, please visit www.HoustonFoodBank.org.