Power Pack Action Planning Meeting

Thursday, July 9, 2015

Riverview District Office

5:30-7:30pm

Notes

Attending: Mimi Gerhardt, Rebecca Gerhardt, Keri Isbell, Rory Isbell, Isabel Jones, LeeAnn Jones, Samantha (Perry) Manley, Shirley Porteggs, Shelley Skinner, Caleb Stromberg, Justine Stromberg, Christine Tapert, Linda Benson

Objective: To deliver the first 20 weekend power packs to Cherry Valley School counselor on September 18, and the processes and structure to ensure weekly deliveries throughout the school year.

Goals:

  • Decrease the number of children in our community who worry about how/when they will eat
  • Eliminate weekend meal gaps and nutritional deficiencies
  • Help students reach their full potential by providing them with a constant source of nutrition
  • Create an effort that can help educate and involve as many community members as possible who are interested in helping reduce local childhood hunger and food insecurity
  • Ensure the program is able to be scaled and shared with other schools

Highlights:

  1. Power Pack Community: The group that came to the planning meeting were from Duvall, Woodinville and Carnation, so we recommend we change the name of the effort to Valley Power Packs. [ Any thoughts about this? ]
  1. Evolving Ideas: The group talked about a second option for how to involve the community in procuring weekly backpacks, so we’d like to introduce two ways. This would give us a chance to see which method(s) are most effective in our community.

Option 1: 20+ people sign up to pack one power pack and deliver it to a convenient downtown location on Thursday or Friday mornings.

Option 2: Groups/businesses can sign up to purchase all of a week’s worth of items – i.e. milk, granola bars, mac & cheese, and another group can sign up to pack them on Thursday afternoon/evenings.

These options together offer a number of opportunities to get involved with this important need, so we decided that both options would be great to test. Our thinking is that we use Option 1 for the first two distributions in September and then shift to the Option 2 plan for a couple of weeks. If both are working well, we can continue this ongoing.

  1. Volunteers Needed: We spent the bulk of our time talking through some of the critical volunteer roles that need to be filled. Here is a list broken out by “Core volunteers (those needed to staff functions that can’t be easily passed on week to week” and “Short-term volunteers (those We who can volunteer to pick up food from drop offs and deliver to school, packing volunteers, etc.
  1. Volunteer Sign-up Process set-up: We will create a list of the volunteers needed on “volunteer spot”-- an on-line sign-up site. This link will then be distributed to our growing Power Pack network for broader distribution. We hope to have all core volunteers on board by August 10th.

Below is the list of volunteers that have been discussed over the past two meetings.

CoreVolunteers --(those who are responsible for key aspects of the process – Can move on anytime with a replacement on-board and trained)

Landing Site Team: Creators and monitors (2-3 ongoing volunteers??)

  • Choose the online sign up program and create the page with the link the community can use. Set up calendar so people can choose between multiple weeks at a time; ( i.e. a sign-up page for September 18th and September 25th) This will also require creating two versions of the site – one that can accommodate Option 1 and Option 2 sign-up types.
  • Maintain the on-line sign up landing page with any new information needed; i.e. additional packs, special packs, etc.) When one week is filled, close the page and add another week. Communicate with promotions volunteers when weeks are filled or if certain weeks are not getting filled up.

Website Team: (2-3 ongoing volunteers??)

  • Maintain the Valley Power Pack website (being set up on the NourishingNetworks.net site.

(i.e. basic information about what the program is, opportunities to get involved, stories of those involved, and contact information)

  • Ensure all needed links are included and functioning on the website page – (i.e. to the sign-up landing site and Power Pack facebook sites, etc)

General Information MonitorTeam: (2 ongoing volunteers)

  • Website/Facebook contacts: Those who will respond to inquiries submitted through the website and other promotional sites. (We are setting up and info@ email account for this purpose.

Distribution Team(4-5 ongoing volunteers)

  • Find and reserve weekly check/pack site for final prep and deliver food from drop-off sites; arrange for the necessary volunteers to accomplish the following:
  • “Option 1” weeks – Pre-packed packs food from drop-off site – Check each pack to ensure all the food needed is there and that there is nothing that shouldn’t be there.
  • “Option 2” weeks – Bulk purchase food by groups/families/businesses etc. Set up packing party with the food donated.

PromotionsTeam: (5+ ongoing volunteers)

  • Create the “Launch” materials to kick off the effort that encourages and excites our community to get involved
  • Create ongoing copy for website/facebook page/twitter that encourages needed levels of participation at the donor or volunteer levels.
  • Build the relationships in the community to ensure that the program is understood and being supported
  • Create special alert messages for times when the slots are not being filled
  • Write-up stories and get pictures of: the counselor (student feed-back), the volunteers, others about their experience doing this work. Feel-good stories that inspire more participation.

Counselor liaison Team

  • Be the main point of contact to transmit info and needs between the counselor and the volunteers. (i.e. an increase in the number of packs needed; a special diet powerpack, etc.)
  • Anything else the counselor and/or volunteers might want to communicate.

One-time/Short-term volunteers

Final Prep & Packing Volunteers

  • Groups, families, clubs who would like to help with final preparations

Emergency “Go-to” volunteers –

  • A group of people who are available with little notice to do an emergency run to the store to purchase and deliver whatever might be missing

Others???

  1. Messaging: We are creating a flyer that can be distributed at Sandblast. The following is what was created by one of our participants which will be designed and prepped for printing by another participant

Initial Messasge:

Power Pack Flyer Copy

On her last day of school an 8 year old girl wrapped her arms around her teacher and tears began to stream down her face. Her teacher asked, “Why are you crying? This is the last day of school, you should be happy!” The little girl responded, “I don’t know the next time I am going to be able to eat.”

Nearly 15% of children at Cherry Valley Elementary School in Duvall are in a similar situation as this 8 year old girl. The food provided by the school is of great support to the families during the week; however, on the weekends the time of their next meal can be unsure. Our goal, with the help of the local community, is to provide supplemental food for these kids on the weekends to relieve some of their parents’ stress and to keep the kids healthier and ready to learn on Monday morning.

We call them “Power Packs” and they will be given to a child in need before leaving school on Friday. Each Pack will consist of produce, oatmeal, and other non-perishable items that can last a weekend.

This is an exciting community effort and we will need many hands and Power Pack donors and volunteers to get us through the next school year. Our initial goal is to reach 20 children per weekend starting September 18th. If you’re interested in helping or have questions, please contact Linda Benson – .

Let’s be an example of compassion and love for struggling families in our community!

  1. PowerPackTimeline Milestones:

July --

17th – Flyers ready for distribution at Sandblast

30th – Landing Page Site created and ready for testing

August:

10th – Ongoing volunteer teams established with a convener and volunteers

14th –Begin promotion including Press releases sent for launch of Power Packs to community

18th – Sign-up Landing Page in final form

28th – Theater links set up to promote Power Pack effort

September:

11th – First week sign up completed and second and third weeks begun

11th – Short-term help recruited (for checking/packing/emergency run duties)

18th – First 20+ packs are delivered to Cherry Valley

  1. Commitments Made:

Justine and Caleb – Set up Volunteer Spot and send link to network

Rebecca – Sign up as an emergency “go-to” volunteer

Mimi – Social Media promotions

Christine – Find and secure drop-off locations (i.e. library and Duvall Fitness)

Rory – Design flyer for Sandblast; Serve on the Landing Site Team

Keri – Social Media – Will establish a facebook page for us to begin using asap

Shirley – Social Media

Samantha – Short-term volunteer and source business/donor of PB&J and nuts/seeds

Shelley -- General Information Monitor

Linda – Power Pack website launched – Send flyer copy to Rory – Talk with Rotary about fiscal sponsor of donations