Donor Spotlight: Hunger Network
CLEVELAND – FrontLine Service would not be able to fulfill its mission without the support of the community, whether its acts of service, money, or supplies, we are grateful for the tremendous generosity we receive and would like to highlight the individuals and organizations who support us in reaching out to vulnerable members of our community who are challenged with homeless, mental health issues and traumatic experiences.
For the past year, Hunger Network Food Rescue has been donating food to the individuals and families FrontLine serves. This local organization’s work is to ensure that no one goes hungry and no food goes to waste was needed last year more than ever due to the COVID-19 pandemic and was vitally important for individuals we serve in our Permanent Supported Housing programs and the families served through our trauma programs.
Residents of our Permanent Support Housing programs found access to food difficult as the need in the community increased for food pantries, due to CDC recommendations, FrontLine staff was not able to transport clients to food pantries. With children home from school, families’ need for food increased and the most requested need through our trauma department was food.
What is Hunger Network Food Rescue?
Hunger Network Food Rescue program, a program of Hunger Network, works with volunteers who utilize an app to pick up food and deliver it to nonprofit partners. The program began in November 2018 and since then has rescued over 2.5 million pounds of food.
Currently, there are over 150 rescues completed each week from donors and nonprofit partners around Cuyahoga County. The organization works with food donors such as restaurants, grocers, bakeries, caterers, food distributors, and even hotels. Donations include mostly fresh produce and bakery items, as well as prepared foods, that are perfectly viable food but it typically slightly bruised, ugly, day-old bakery, or excess prepared foods from restaurants and caterers.
Relationship with FrontLine Service
Stacy Soulimiotis, Hunger Network Program Director, said she was first introduced to FrontLine Service through a volunteer and began donating meals for FrontLine clients in Greenbridge Commons, a housing project located in Cleveland’s Midtown corridor.
Over the course of a year, Hunger Network Food Rescue added more of FrontLine’s housing sites to their list of food rescue locations. Currently, they donate to eight housing locations, but Stacy says they hope to add more in the future. To date, Hunger Network Food Rescue has donated about 43,000 pounds of food to FrontLine Service, with plans for even more in the future.
Rebekah Wiland, Associate Director of Housing at FrontLine Service, says that the food donations have been invaluable to her and her fellow workers to feed the many individuals in the housing projects, especially during the recent pandemic.
“Hunger Network Food Rescue made the process of obtaining food so simple for us, and the staff and volunteers worked so hard to ensure we got items that our clients wanted,” she said. “I cannot put into words how important that is to our ability to meet our clients’ most basic needs. With limited income and limited access, food choice is rare, so Hunger Network Food Rescue's contributions have created wonderful opportunities.”
Another aspect of the food was its freshness and diversity, Wiland said, which included high-quality produce and various food choices for some clients who have dietary restrictions.
Hunger Network Food Rescue volunteer moving produce
Distribution
The Hunger Network Food Rescue Program uses a mobile application that streamlines the logistics of the program. The mobile app, which Stacy describes as “Uber/Lyft for volunteers” allows anyone to become a volunteer, pick up the food donation and transport it to the designated nonprofit partner in less than an hour. Volunteers range from one-time volunteers to many doing several rescues per week. Rescues take less than an hour to complete, which is a great opportunity for anyone wanting to squeeze volunteer time into their day.
“It’s a really great way for a volunteer to do something and not take a lot of time out of their day,” Stacy said.
In 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic made the program face some difficult challenges at first. However, thanks to their application, they have been able to keep up with donations with contact-less drop-offs for volunteers. The USDA Farmers to Families Food Box Program also helped the program in distributing food from farms that would have otherwise gone to waste in the first part of the pandemic and brought to families all over Cuyahoga County.
Currently, the program is in Cuyahoga County but has begun to reach out as far as Hudson, Lorain, and Avon. Once there is more room for growth, Stacy hopes to hire more staff to continuously donate to neighboring counties.
“People want to do good and I think if they’re given the opportunity to do something and to be part of something, they will and that really showed during the pandemic,” Stacy said. “So I just hope that we can expand this program because the need is just so great.”
Learn more
If you’d like to donate, learn more, or volunteer with Hunger Network, you can follow the links below.
Donate:
https://hungernetwork.org/ways-to-give/
Information:
https://hungernetwork.org/food-rescue/
Email:
Volunteer through the app:
https://apps.apple.com/us/app/hunger-network-food-rescue/id1439103052
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=org.hungernetwork.app