Thanks to Christina!!

When Christina applied to volunteer with the Foodbank, she really wanted a summer internship to gain experience in software development while sharing her skills and talents with an exciting technology company. She's majoring in Computer Science at UCSB and has a ton of computer/web programming skills.

At the time, we didn't have anything within her area of expertise that we needed help with. What we really needed was people to help plan and promote our upcoming fundraiser, Fork & Cork Classic. Even though this was not an ideal volunteer opportunity for Christina, she began attending our meetings and became super excited to help us.

After a few meetings with the committee, we decided that we needed a website for the event. Michael Kramer, owner of Ameravant, offered to build and maintain a website as an in-kind donation! I introduced him to Christina and now he has created an apprenticeship/mentorship opportunity to enable Christina to fulfill her internship objective!

Christina is now instrumental for the success of our Fork & Cork Classic Website. She is in charge of making all of the updates and adding logos and pictures for all of the sponsors and exhibitors who are participating in the event.

We love the work she is doing! We recently created another volunteer position for Christina to update the Foodbank Website too. We are excited to receive her advice and suggestions for the new website that is being built.

Thank you, Christina, for being flexible, patient, and loyal to us! I'm so happy that we were able to create the opportunity that you really wanted. We really appreciate all of your help!)

Thanks to Penny!!

Penny is our ServSafe Certified Warehouse Sorting & Packaging Leader! She volunteers two mornings per week to lead our warehouse sorting and packaging projects AND the second Saturday of every month to facilitate the packaging station for our Kids4Foodbank Program.

Attention to detail, following "The Book," and making sorting and packaging FUN is Penny's M.O. She starts off her day coordinating with our warehouse manager to see what needs to be sorted or packaged that day. Projects include sorting fresh produce that our amazing Back Yard Bounty volunteers pick, sorting canned and boxed food, and packaging pasta or beans.

When volunteers come in, she gives them a FUN tour of our warehouse and explains what the Foodbank does. Then, she gets right down to business - instructing everyone on her team on how to follow the food safety rules so that we are in alignment with ServSafe guidelines.

Penny goes above and beyond every day! She's always making suggestions on how we can improve our processes and procedures to become more efficient and she NEVER let's anything slide. Her perfectionism is imperative to the success of our sorting and packaging program.

Thank you, Penny, for your never ending determination and dedication!)
   

Thanks to Nallely!!

Nallely is our Bilingual Volunteer Coordinator. She's responsible for recruiting bilingual volunteers, giving warehouse tours, collecting paperwork, filling bilingual volunteer positions, following up with volunteers, and managing her volunteer's schedules.

Since we have a ton of program sites that need to be managed, Nallely quickly realized that she needed to structure her position as a leadership role and train in assistant volunteer coordinators to help manage each program site.

As soon as she finalizes and documents her system, she will be traveling up to North County and training in a "Nallely" there to do the same thing!) She understands that to be successful and efficient, delegating and duplicating is how it's done!

Nallely is currently recruiting for lead volunteers to help with Picnic in the Park, our summer feeding program. During the school year, she will be recruiting for bilingual volunteers to help with Kid's Farmers Market, Healthy School Pantry, and Teens Love Cooking. If you or anyone you know is bilingual and interested in helping, please E-Mail Nallely.

As if all of that isn't enough, Nallely went above and beyond and visited our Teens Love Cooking site in Carpinteria, interviewed and videotaped the volunteers, and made this extremely heartfelt video:

Nallely, we can't even begin to describe how much you mean to us. Please know that you are so, so, so appreciated!!!

Thanks to Beatriz!!

Beatriz lives in Florida and volunteers remotely to enter all of the information from our volunteer applications into our database. She responded to an ad we placed online for a data entry expert and after one training webinar, she hit the ground running.

I love the fact that she asks questions to clarify exactly how we need the information entered so that our reports will be efficient on the back end. This demonstrates high-level/big picture thinking, not just following the training manual step-by-step and never asking "why" or suggesting ways to make the process more efficient.


We will be transitioning to a new database (SalesForce) soon, so Beatriz not only has to learn how we need information entered into the current database, but also in SalesForce simultaneously!

Because of her extensive database experience, especially in SalesForce, Beatriz's feedback on how we can structure things more effectively within SalesForce will be greatly appreciated. We are confident in her ability to manage this project successfully and extremely fortunate to have such a committed and experienced team! Thank you, Beatriz!)

Thanks to Lisa!!

Lisa lives in New Mexico and is volunteering remotely from the comfort of her own home on her own time. She responded to an ad we placed online for a data entry/project management expert to help us organize all of the businesses that are participating in our Fork & Cork Classic fundraiser.

We quickly swooped Lisa up and assigned her to one of our most challenging positions when she responded, "Analyzing data? Not a nightmare, A DREAM!!! I'm one of those people who stop you from throwing away a knotted mess of string because I'm completely convinced it can be untangled! It's a lot to go through but totally manageable. I'm sure once I get used to using SalesForce and start developing the most proficient route for organizing this data that it won't be such a nightmare anymore :)."

Lisa has been a dream come true ever since! She completely disentangled the project and got everything organized in a flash. Rebecca, one of Lisa's teammates for this project, exclaimed, "This is amazing! Lisa is a GEM!!! I am so thrilled that you have found someone like her." We agree and are extremely grateful to have Lisa on our team!

Thanks to Tasnim!!

Tasnim volunteers remotely for the Foodbank from Georgia! She responded to an ad we posted online for a database expert to help us transition into SalesForce from our old database and train in our staff on how to use it. Her commitment to this project is immeasurable and she deserves a national award for all of the time and effort she's put into this!)

Working closely with key Foodbank SalesForce decision makers, Tasnim first needed to understand how the Foodbank wanted to utilize SalesForce and how the data was to be used in reports. Then, she browsed the training manual sections in SalesForce to use as templates and added Foodbank-specific instructions as well as screen shots so everyone could see and read exactly how to perform each step.

Tasnim's dedication to this project doesn't end here. She continues to go above and beyond and has created a professional training program to offer training videos and live training webinars for our staff! She is also assisting our database expert teams on Foodbank's specific data entry processes! Having Tasnim answer questions from other database volunteers frees up Foodbank staff's time so that we can focus on getting more food, money, and volunteers into the Foodbank.

We are so very fortunate to have Tasnim on our team and our appreciation for her efforts is indescribable.

Thanks to Prasanna!!

Prasanna is a database expert and volunteers remotely for the Foodbank from Arizona. She is absolutely outstanding!) She responded to an ad we posted online to help enter data in our SalesForce database for our food and wine tasting fundraiser, called Fork & Cork Classic.

Once Prasanna understood the complexity of this project, and realized that we had tons of accounts and contacts to manage for this campaign, she took off in a rage of keyboard flurry to keep up with all of the new businesses we had to manage that kept pouring in.

After creating a system to organize the steps to complete this process, Prasanna divided up the responsibilities so that a team of database experts could help her. Now, she's training in the team, which is relieving her from having to do all of the entries herself.

Prasanna's accessible via e-mail for this project almost 24/7, which is another reason she's so valuable. Foodbank staff is relieved from having to enter and manage all of this data, and every time we e-mail her with a task or a question, she responds almost instantaneously. We know we can depend on Prasanna and her team and we appreciate all of the time and effort that she gave to accomplish this!) 

Thanks to Bill!!

We've learned that Bill is an incredible organizer and efficiency expert! He thought he was taking on a simple project - packaging food to distribute to senior centers, a Foodbank program called Brown Bag, when he first signed up to volunteer.

Bill discovered that the program really needed a leader to organize all of the volunteer paperwork and get the sites running more efficiently. Bill's not the kind of guy to just sit around - if something needs improvement, he's going to help in any way he can. He just dug in and created all of his own processes and procedures to clean things up. This has taken so much time and pressure off the Brown Bag Program Manager and myself and we are extremely grateful!

Now, Bill's adding volunteers to create a team. Each of his team members are being assigned to a different program site to manage. Bill's created all of the processed and procedures, so now it's just a matter of duplicating these standards at all of the sites and empowering a team of lead volunteers to help him accomplish this goal.

Whooo, hooo, Bill! We are so thankful to have you on our team!)

Thanks to Arlene!!

Arlene is like my adopted California Mommy. She's always there for me, no matter what and has been helping with so many different things for the Foodbank.

What I value most are Arlene's ability to do whatever it takes to make things happen and the ease at which she builds relationships. She's helped man our booths in the community and get people excited about helping the Foodbank and now she's taken on the major task of securing silent auction items for our upcoming food and wine tasting fundraiser, called Fork & Cork Classic.


It seems like no matter what we throw at her, she's got it. I feel secure and less stressed knowing that she's taking care of things and that I can count on her to get it done. Thanks, Arlene! You are so greatly appreciated!)

Thank You Pam!!

Pam lives in Chicago and volunteers remotely for our Foodbank! She responded to an ad we posted online to post volunteer opportunities online. Even though Pam was extremely over-qualified for this position (she's a database expert!), she knew that this was an area we needed help with at the time and she was willing to do whatever we needed. Her efforts enabled us to advertise our volunteer opportunities on multiple outreach channels, which generated a flood of inquiries!

When Pam learned about our transition to SalesForce, we restructured her volunteer position to help prepare our volunteer contacts for the migration. There are so many parts to manage for this transition and Pam stepped up to the plate to lead this project. She's structuring the work for her team and is training in her teammates. All I have to do is forward data entry experts to her and she takes care of everything else. Pam's team just accomplished their first project and we all did an online victory dance!

I am so grateful for all of the time she is saving me! Thank you, Pam! I can't wait to meet you in person when you visit California this summer!)

Thanks to Jenny!!

Jenny lives in my home state, IOWA!) She responded to an ad we posted online for a database expert to help us transition to SalesForce. After working all day, Jenny volunteers remotely helping us organize data and make the most efficient use of managing high volume event campaigns.

In addition to her extensive knowledge of SalesForce and the recommendations she makes to ease our workloads, Jenny's accessibility and swift response time are highly valuable to our staff. Our requests are answered within the next business day and the job is done before we even have time to think about following up with her.

Such dedication is admired and greatly appreciated!)

Thanks to Ani!!

Ani is our Community Outreach Extraordinaire! Last fall, she manned tons of booths for the Foodbank and got everyone that she came into contact with excited about getting involved!

Her outgoing personality, passion for promoting a great cause, and reliability are essential assets that we value so much!

Ani is a true leader. We paired her up with less experienced community outreach volunteers and she successfully inspired and trained in a team to cover more ground than we could ever accomplish on our own.

Thank you, Ani!)

Thanks to Hannah!!

Hannah is our Lead Marketing Volunteer Coordinator. She focuses on recruiting graphic designers, eNewsletter team members, website editors, social media team members, journalists, videographers, photographers, and fundraising volunteers.

A huge part of her job entails managing the schedules for her teams of volunteers and ensuring the work gets done. In order to manage this effectively, Hannah is recruiting lead volunteers to manage teams of volunteers. Her organizational and leadership skills are instrumental for the success of our volunteer marketing department.


We are extremely impressed with Hannah's ability to jump in and figure things out. She quickly learned how to utilize our volunteer database and online scheduling system for organizing her teams and their work so that Foodbank staff and marketing team members can easily see what stage each project is in real time.

Way to go, Hannah! We are very fortunate to have her on our team!