Since its inception, hunger
relief has been a core initiative of Aidmatrix in partnership with Feeding
America and its 200+ food bank members.
During Q4 two new partners –
Kansas and San Antonio – completed AgencyExpress implementations and now have
access to online shopping bringing the total to 50 food banks; additionally,
America’s Second Harvest of Coastal Georgia completed its migration to AE 3. By
year end, Eastern Illinois Foodbank will join this group becoming #51.
Privileged to work with Kansas
and San Antonio on their implementations, I visited San Antonio shortly after
Thanksgiving meeting Megan DeMers, Compliance and Capability Manager; and Genevieve Noriega, Director
of Partner Services, the leads on the implementation. This was not my first
visit.
November 2010, I toured
the San Antonio Food Bank for the first time. In the past three years its
continued growth in outreach and facilities is impressive. President & CEO Eric Cooper
and his team strive to implement programs and build facilities to broaden their
impact on the 16-county area served.
With pride, Genevieve
showed me the educational community garden, the production garden, and the newly
completed Harvey E. Najim
Children’s Pavilion as well as the main building and warehouse. The new
pavilion is a dynamic space which can be used by the community partners as well as for food bank
special events including the culmination of its “11-week Summer Food Service
Program with an end-of-summer gathering, Fun Out of the Sun, for agencies and their summer participants”.
Megan shared her interaction with AgencyExpress from the
food bank admin side, a ‘live’ view I rarely experience. SAFB is eager to
quantify the benefits of online ordering via AgencyExpress; Megan and Genevieve
were not the only ones to tell me how thrilled they are to have online shopping
now at SAFB.
SAFB works with more than 500 partner
agencies throughout southwest Texas. In FY2012 it provided more than 48 million
pounds of food in an effort to end hunger throughout its 16-country region.
Heading north back to Dallas, I stopped
in New Braunfels at the Kitchen Table, a SAFB program led by Emily Kirtner and
her staff. Kitchen Table is “a different pantry experience”. Along with
shopping privileges, client families have access to classes, which include
nutrition and cooking, Zumba sponsored by the YMCA, and career classes taught
by Goodwill. Participation in classes earns attendees points, which are applied
to shopping. Thanks to Emily and her team for sharing the great work they are
doing in New Braunfels.
The holiday season is upon us,
and November through December is a busy time across the Feeding America food
bank network, as each works tirelessly to provide Thanksgiving and Christmas
meals to families that otherwise would not celebrate these holidays with the
traditional meals to which we all look forward. Thank you to all our Feeding
America partners for your commitment to ending hunger in the US.
To learn more about AgencyExpress, contact: charlotte_medley@aidmatrix.org
or Ida_beal@aidmatrix.org.
