February 10, 2010

CVS/Caremark assembles 5,000 Hi Five Kids Packs

Author: Sasha Hausman

CVS/Caremark kicked off their annual conference with this Kids Backpack Assembly Volunteer event where they assembled 5,000 Hi Five Kids Packs.  These packs will go home with elementary school students on Friday afternoon who don’t have access to school cafeterias during the weekend. CVS/Caremark donated $10,000 that was used to provide the food bank with the resources to serve 900 students for the rest of the school year in two schools!

Without the support of corporate partners like CVS/Caremark our job would be much harder. Volunteers help us get food into the hands of needy families quicker and more efficiently. In today’s society there is a renewed spirit in helping fellow Americans. Feeding America is glad that CVS/Caremark show their spirit of giving through involvement with our organization and member Food Banks.  

Photo Slideshow:

Sasha Hausman
Events Specialist

February 4, 2010

Behind the Scenes of Hunger in Central Florida 2010: The Data

Author: Brady Koch

We’re always excited and anxious about getting the results of our Hunger in America studies. On one hand we finally get the results of a year’s worth of training, coordination and volunteerism. On the other hand we get a nearly 300 page document that can be overwhelming. 500, 80 questions surveys creates a lot of data. How can we condense this into something that is digestible and still tells the complete story of hunger in Central Florida?

Once we get the results, a group of us involved in the study from the beginning meet to sift through all of the tables, graphs, and narratives to pinpoint the information that Central Floridians care about most. At first we focus on the demographics. How many children, seniors, working adults, and homeless are affected by hunger.

Then we look at all of the questions that see how hunger is impacting their lives. How many people had to choose between gas for their car or buying food? And so on. Finally we look at the information from our partner agencies to see how they are responding to the ever increasing demand.

After weeks of meeting and going back and forth what data to include in the final presentation, we’re ready for our press conference. As you’ll soon see, the results for Hunger in Central Florida are staggering.

While it can be overwhelming to see the face of hunger in our statistics, we hope that everyone can also see that we have a strategy to fight hunger in Central Florida. If you’re interested in learning more, please attend our Hunger in Central Florida 2010 reception on Monday, February 8 at the Orlando Repertory Theatre. Click here to RSVP and for complete details.

Brady Koch
Director of Agency Relations & Programs

February 3, 2010

Behind the Scenes of Hunger in Central Florida 2010: The Volunteers

Author: Brady Koch

In addition to the Salvation Army and the KISS army, one of my favorite armies is the Second Harvest Hunger Study Army of volunteers. To complete the Hunger in Central Florida 2010 study, we utilized the services of nearly 100 dedicated volunteers who were willing to do one of the toughest assignments we have at the food bank: ask people questions.

Beginning in the Winter of 2009, we put out the call to volunteers who could commit to a two hour training, in addition to driving to one of our partner sites and interviewing a random sample of clients for about 30 minutes each.

Our volunteers came from all walks of life. Retirees, professionals, foundation heads, staff, our board of directors, and others all attended the training and were able to ask the 80 survey questions identically to preserve the integrity of the study. We were surprised at how many of our volunteers had participated in the 2006 survey. In speaking with them, they found the process very rewarding.

Hunger in Central Florida took over 500 volunteer hours to complete. Each interview averaged out to half an hour and like I wrote earlier, the most difficult part of the job wasn’t the noise of the location or working in the rain, it was asking difficult questions.

Many of the questions are simple ”how many people are in your family?, what is your age?, do you currently receive food stamps?” Questions like “Have you had to choose between food and medicine in the past month” and “Have your children had to go to bed without eating this week” can really challenge both the volunteer and interviewee. Every time we complete the study, volunteers speak with us about how emotionally draining the survey can be.

That’s why our Hunger Study Army is such a unique group of volunteers. They are not be fighting hunger by working with the food in our warehouse, they are fighting hunger by helping us tell the story of hunger in Central Florida to the community.

You don’t have to wait until our next study in 2013 to volunteer, contact Mindy Ortiz at mortiz@foodbankcentralflorida.org to learn how we can use your help today.

Brady Koch
Director of Agency Relations & Programs

February 2, 2010

Behind the Scenes of Hunger in Central Florida 2010: The Process

Author: Brady Koch

Every four years, all of the Feeding America food banks participate in the Hunger in America Study. On February 8th we will be holding a press conference and reception to share the Central Florida results. Click here to RSVP >>

The Study

The study is broken up into two parts. The first part is a questionnaire mailed to each of our Partner Feeding Programs. We have 530 partner agencies and it takes quite a bit of coordination keep track of who’s completed the survey and determine if it was a paper form or online.

The second part of the survey is much more resource intensive. We have to visit a random group of our agencies and then complete an 80 question survey with a random sample of clients from the people present. Because this is more work than we can accomplish with just staff, we rely almost exclusively on volunteers for the interview.

Once all of the surveys are complete, we turn them in to Feeding America to process the results. One year later, we get a really large email with our results and put together our Hunger in Central Florida 2010 books. It is a long process, but the information learned about local hunger is invaluable.

Brady Koch
Director of Agency Relations & Programs

January 20, 2010

State-side Relief for Haiti

Author: Dave Krepcho

Although we are not chartered as an organization to do international relief, we found ourselves very busy these past few days in helping with the Haitian relief effort – domestically.

We have already provided five truckloads of food and beverages working alongside Department of Children & Families at Sanford International Airport. The first food these Haitian U.S. citizens receive when on U.S. soil is directly from Second Harvest Food Bank of Central Florida. We do not know what to anticipate when the refugee population starts to arrive in the U.S. and its impact on Central Florida.

The folks were so grateful for the food and also to be out of harm’s way. When I had the chance to provide food to the flight crew of the C-17 military transport in the middle of Saturday night, it was certainly one of those “mission moments” I’ll never forget.

To see our military being used for humanitarian reasons was very heartwarming. And to see that the average age of the nine member flight crew was about 27 years old was really a surprise!

That crew could not have been more polite and respectful despite flying for hours and under pressure to get back to Port Au Prince quickly. It made me proud to be an American.

Below are some pictures:

Dave Krepcho
President/CEO
Second Harvest Food Bank of Central Florida