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!

Thanks to Thomas!!

I met Thomas when I was staffing a booth for the Foodbank at a community event. He was very excited to get involved with the Foodbank and expressed an interest in teaching children how to cook. Thomas has volunteered to help with our Turkey Drive, staffing our booth at community events, creating flyers to promote our cause, and providing his entrepreneurship and marketing mentorship expertise to the Foodbank.

From getting to know Thomas, I’ve discovered that he is quite the entrepreneur and is passionate about helping people. Thomas is Founder and CEO of Otojoy, a wireless hearing loop system that enhances the sounds people want to hear and filters out the sounds people don’t want to hear.

Thomas also provides business development leadership and mentorship in a number of start-up groups and competitions. His team recently launched a start-up venture called Omza in 54 hours at Start-Up Weekend Santa Barbara! Omza is a mobile phone application that allows yoga instructors the ability simplify the scheduling process and list all classes they teach in one place.

Thomas is the only person I know who can operate multiple businesses and provide mentorship in several start-up ventures while simultaneously engaging in a variety of extra-curricular activities AND he still takes the time to help me and the Foodbank!