Food Provider and Food Storage Committee Members

Introduction:

GJ - Alleviating Hunger & Food Waste (GJ) is a non-profit organization (501(c)(3)) that is designed to create a platform for volunteers to aid in the transfer of excess food from going to waste to areas such as food banks, food pantries, and soup kitchens.

Detailed below are the goals GJ-Alleviating Hunger wishes to achieve.

• To provide a medium to transport surplus food from food providers to food storage areas such as food banks, food pantries, and soup kitchens
• To engender a proper way to optimize the benefits of the volunteers and reduce the costs (time, monetary resources, etc.) incurred by the volunteers in this organization
• To provide opportunities for volunteers to obtain volunteer hours, networking opportunities, and service experiences
• To reduce and potentially alleviate the wastage of food in the local communities and counties.

Over the past year, GJ - Alleviating Hunger and Food Waste has partnered with various food providers, Dunkin, Panera and food storage areas, Salvation Army, and Auntie Na’s Village in Michigan.

Current Food Providers and Food Storage Areas:

• Food Providers: As of now, GJ - Alleviating Hunger & Food Waste is working with Panera locations in Livonia, MI , Dearborn Heights, MI , Southfield, MI , West Bloomfield, MI, Bloomfield Hills, MI, Ann Arbor, MI and Dunkin’ locations in Plymouth, MI

Food Storage Areas: Our current food storage locations are the Salvation Army (Farmington, MI) and Auntie Na's Village (Detroit, MI), and we are also expanding to the University of Toledo and University of Michigan

2021 Mission:

To further expand our organization and provide services throughout the country, we will be establishing a Committee of Volunteers to contact Food Storage areas and Food Providers.

Name of Committee: Committee for Coordinating Food Providers and Food Storage Areas

• For each state, there will be a separate committee:
• For example, if we have a Committee in New York, it will be referred to as the Committee for Coordinating Food Providers and Food Storage Areas in New York

Organization of Committee:

• Within each committee, there will be two sections: one section will contact food providers (restaurants, retail areas, etc.), and the other will contact food storage areas such as churches, salvation army locations, temples, food pantries, and food banks.

Organization of State:

• We will allocate members of the committee whether they be in the food storage committee or food providers committee to a specific number of counties within each state (each state is divided into counties, and we will assign volunteers to each county)
• For example, in Michigan, there are approximately 82 counties. We will assign each member (who is in either the food provider committee or food storage committee) to 5 counties. He or she will be responsible to reach out to the food providers and food storage areas in all the cities that fall in the five counties. We will take special notice of the major cities as well.
• Upon gathering information, the member shall organize this information on the electronic database (that will be provided by the Board of Directors), and depending on the interests and availability of the volunteers, the recruitment of volunteers in those areas for the respective food providers and food storage locations will begin.

Goals and Duties of Committee Members:

• Communicating with food providers/food storage areas and find out information on whether the said food provider/food storage areas engage with non-profit organizations.
• Updating the electronic database with new Food Providers and Food Storage areas information (address, phone number, email, etc.)
• Keeping track of each discussion made with each food provider/storage area digitally and consult these discussions for more information and questions
• Reporting any issues/updates to the Director of Public Affairs to be brought up in the Board meetings

Through the establishment of the Food Provider/Food Storage committee, we believe that we can expand our organization to a national organization, and in the future a worldwide organization.