One of the duties of Second Harvest’s Agency Relations Department is to not only monitor but make sure our partner agencies are receiving everything they need from us.  Our Agency Relations team thought it would be a good idea to volunteer with our agencies to get a different perspective of how the agencies serve their clients in need.

The first Agency Relations Coordinator to volunteer and write about this experience is Paula Assal.

Read about her experience below:

On Wednesday, January 4, 2012, I volunteered during the distribution at Apostolic Church of Jesus/West Orange. One of agency relations goals is to provide better customer service and to nurture the agency partnership with Second Harvest Food Bank.  Our hope is that by volunteering at the agencies I will not only have a better understanding of the agency needs but we can assist the agencies in a capacity that staff members haven’t experienced yet. It is as much of a learning experience for me as it is for the agency.

My time at Apostolic was spent talking to Stephanie, the pantry coordinator, assisting clients with the intake process, and restocking shelves. The intake process is not an easy job as many clients are reluctant to give their name and address for the paperwork needed. Each client that came was so happy to be blessed with what Apostolic could offer them by means of food and clothing. Some of the clients had difficulty filling out the form but each had a smile on their face as they left with their food. Patience and understanding is a big part of helping clients complete the forms.

It felt so good seeing each client come in with anticipation on their face and relief when they left knowing that if nothing else their families were going to eat that night. Afterwards, I helped restock shelves and date food product, no easy task as food is very heavy and keeping in mind rotating the food. When it was all over we had served 29 families in two hours. What a blessing to the community!

I look forward to the upcoming months to volunteer at different pantries and have similar but different experiences. I am so excited to be a part of the pantry process.

Paula Assal
Agency Relations Coordinator

This week we are spotlighting Collins Cupboard at the Lighthouse Christian Church in Deland, Florida, run by Robin and Gene Campbell. The pantry distributed food to 674 households and 2334 individual people last quarter.

Collins Cupboard sends volunteers every Monday to the Volusia Branch warehouse to help unload and put away the truckload of food that arrives from Second Harvest’s main facility in Orlando. We have never asked for this, but are grateful for the help.  

In addition to being a first class partner agency, Collins Cupboard falls into the super volunteer category. They volunteer for Scouting for Food, Wesh TV’s Share your Christmas and pretty much anytime we could use a hand … they are always ready to help us out.

 Here are some photos of Collins Cupboard in action:

 Below is a photo of them unloading a trailer full of food.

 
A happy recipient leaving the pantry with bags of food.

 
Collins Cupboard crew serving a spaghetti meal. The proceeds went to their pantry. 

Second Harvest Food Bank distributes food to over 600 feeding partners in six counties. Collins Cupboard is 1 of 90 agencies that we currently partner with in Volusia County. Their passion for fighting hunger and helping their neighbors is truly unmatched. We salute Robin and Gene and all their friends at Collins Cupboard, and all our partner agencies in Volusia County—keep up the incredible work!

 If you are a Volusia resident and would like to visit our facility, and a learn a little bit more about hunger in Central Florida, please sign up for a Food for Thought Tour at our Volusia branch.

Maria Diestro
Online Services and Communications Manager

On Friday April 2nd Second Harvest Food Bank set up a mobile pantry at a Tuskawilla United Methodist Church in the Casselberry area.

Earlier we had received a call from church representatives expressing the need for food in the area. Right across the street from the church is a school that has over 200 students receiving free/reduced lunches. Even though the church was not a partner agency, Second Harvest agreed to bring a truck with some staff members to volunteer their time.

The truck had 8 pallets of canned and dry food, two pallets of fruit and veggies, and 1 pallet of bread products. The pallets were arranged in the parking lot were the church members had set up a drive thru scenario. One person would sign in the people requesting food, and then the client would drive up to receive their order.

It was wonderful to see all the church volunteers that showed up to serve over 120 families in a three hour period.  Tuskawilla United Methodist ended up filling out an agency application and was recently accepted. We are very happy that they will be helping to alleviate hunger in their area on a weekly basis.

Photos from the day:

Erin Gray
Agency Relations Manager

On January 30th, Second Harvest Food Bank and New Covenant Church participated in our Produce to the People Program. Through this partnership with New Covenant Church, we were able to provide more food to individuals in Orange County on this day. Since the church is located in a part of East Orange County where there are few food pantries, the food distributed was made available to many that normally would not receive it.

This was our sixth Produce to the People mobile drop that we have enlisted our partner agencies to be a part of. With this program, Second Harvest Food Bank drops off ten pallets of fruits, vegetables and bakery items at a mobile location. These items usually have a short shelve life span or are perishable. 

The majority of the produce we received was from the gleaning that the Society of St. Andrews volunteers collected. New Covenant Church received two pallets of potatoes and three pallets of oranges that were recently gleaned from farms. The remaining pallets for the agency’s distribution were two pallets of bottled juice and four pallets of assorted bread and bakery products.  

700+ families showed up at New Covenant for the normal Saturday distribution only to find that there were an additional 11 pallets of fresh items waiting for them to take home. Both New Covenant Church and its clients were extremely happy to be receiving this additional food.

Because of our Partnership with our Partner Agencies, donors and people like Society of St. Andrews, we were able be a part of the Fight to End Hunger.

Slideshow:

Erin Gray
Agency Relations Manager

Two weeks ago our Benefits Connection team participated in Project Homeless Connect at Discovery Church. Homeless Services Network of Central Florida organizes local nonprofits for these events so that the Homeless can receive a variety of services at one convenient stop. In addition to our food stamp outreach, guests were able to receive clothing, blankets, haircuts and more.

Our tables were busy for the entire day. I’m sure the cold and the rain helped encourage people to come inside for a few hours to learn about the public benefits they may qualify for. After seeing the impact this event has for the clients first hand, we will definitely continue to participate in Project Homeless Connect.

Brady Koch
Director of Agency Relations and Programs

The following story is based on a telephone interview with Cassandra Williams at the Pine Hills Community Church, the site of one of our Kids Cafes.

A child was walking from school toward the Pine Hills Church Kids Café, when another youngster approached him.

 “Where you going”, asked the child.

“To the church”, replied the other.

“What’s there?”

 “Food!”

 “Really!”

 “Yeah”

“Can I go too?”

“Sure, they don’t mind”

Once at the church, the children were served an after school meal and then participated in the many activities the community center has to offer.

The new child returned home that afternoon and told his mother all about the Kids Café. The next day, both the mom and the child showed up.

The mom was told she would not be able to receive a prepared meal since Kids Cafes are for kids only, but since she was already there and had expressed need, she would be provided with groceries from their food pantry which is stocked with products from Second Harvest Food Bank.

As time went by, the mom began to accompany her son to the church every afternoon. The child would get his usual meal and mom would sit by his side, having brought her own meal prepared from the pantry products she had received.  Afterwards, they would linger over homework, reading improvement activities and much more.

The site supervisor tells us that the Kids Café acted as a magnet, bringing mother and child closer together. “This same story has played out on several occasions”, she commented.

 “The parents are learning from their children, and as a consequence the family grows stronger.”

Santos Maldonado
Childhood Hunger Programs Manager

This past Saturday morning we piloted our Produce to the People program at Victory World Outreach in Maitland. The goal of Produce to the People is to deliver a truckload of produce directly to a community site where it will be handed our immediately by a team of volunteers from one of our partner feeding agencies. We wanted to focus on fresh produce for this program because that can be the most difficult for our clients to have access to on a limited budget.

For our pilot, we delivered two palates of cucumbers, two palates or corn, four palates of grapefruit juice, two palates of Grocery Alliance items, and two palates of apple slices. It was a chilly morning, but Victory World Outreach estimates that they served a little over 200 people.

Volunteers were the key to success. There were at least 16 volunteer on hand. They had an assembly line set up that would make Henry Ford proud. In addition to handing out food, volunteers would help people to their cars, talk to people in the waiting line, and direct traffic. 

Thanks to everyone who helped organize this event. Big thanks to Victory World Outreach. They went way above and beyond in organizing the distribution. This Saturday we’re in Kissimmee to try it all over again with some changes here and there.

We’ll be testing out this program two more times this month in Kissimmee and East Orange County. We’ll let you know how it goes!

Upcoming Produce to the People Pilots

October 24th
8:00 a.m.-10:00 a.m.
Solid Rock
Church of God
1904 North Michigan Ave.
Kissimmee, Florida 34774

October 31st
8:00 a.m.-10:00 a.m.
New Covenant Church of Central Florida
990 Belvedere Road
Orlando, Florida 32820

Below are some photos from the event: