This week’s speaker was Michael J. Billoni, Marketing and Public Relations Director of the Food Bank of Western New York, a position he has held for the past 7-years. 

             Mike graduated from the State University of New York at Morrisville with a degree in Journalism, spent 12-years in the newspaper business as a reporter and editor for the Tonawanda News and the former Buffalo Courier-Express.  In 1982 he began a 14-year career with the Buffalo Bisons baseball team, working with the Rich family on the building of a downtown ballpark and leading the Buffalo franchise to the top drawing team in minor league baseball history, drawing more than 1-million fans for 5 straight seasons.

            While serving as Vice President and General Manager of the Bisons, Mike’s responsibilities also included public relations, publicity and event marketing.  Upon his retirement from the Bisons in 1996, he was inducted into the Buffalo Baseball Hall of Fame.  He then spent nearly 3 years successfully managing a foundation of a local not-for-profit agency, again relying on his local public relations contacts.

In 1999, he founded and became the principle of Billoni Associates, which specializes in writing, public relations, marketing and event management.  Among other projects, he worked on the public relations for local heavyweight boxer, “Baby Joe” Mesi, authored the biography of Robert E. Rich, founder of Rich Products and was a special assistant to Gene Vukelic, chairman of Try-It Distributing.

            Mike, who has always wanted to use his God-given talents to give something back to the community, handles all aspects of development and fund raising for the Food Bank organization which feeds more than 101,000 hungry Western New Yorkers each month.  The Food Bank distributes more than 1-million pounds of food each month through 340 member agencies.

Mike and his wife, Debbie, have lived on Grand Island for 4 years.

Highlights of Mike’s comments included the following:

·         The Food Bank of Western New York is 30 years old.

·         The Food Bank belongs to a national network of over 200 food banks that support each other as needs arise.

·         The Food Bank of Western New York serves over 90,000 people and 36,000 households in a typical year.

·         The Food Bank recently instituted a Weekend Backpack Program in response to the finding that many children do not have enough nutritional food to eat over the weekend. This has been expanded to provide food for the entire family, not just the children. This program is currently implemented in 15 schools and includes 900 families.