Case Study
Just before Thanksgiving, 32 churches in Brandon, Florida across multiple denominations came together on a single day, mobilizing 20,000 church members to purchase 270,000 lbs of food at 35 area Sweetbay and Publix grocery stores, then loaded it onto 18- wheelers, and finally delivered it to 14 area food banks. At a time when food supplies were at an all-time low in the midst of a recession, Feed the Bay provided those agencies enough food to last them for the next 4-6 months!
An event of this scale requires hundreds of volunteers. Each store and food bank needed teams of people and coordinators to load and unload trucks. Everyone had to be at the right place at the right time. Meet The Need’s job was make that happen. In the end, over 800 volunteers from across those 32 churches and 20,000 members were in place on schedule thanks to Meet The Need’s search engine, reports and reminders. According to Feed the Bay’s organizers, a multi-church event of that size is unprecedented and would not have been possible without Meet The Need. Read More...
The Body of Christ was truly unified in that church members from across multiple churches worked side by side at the food banks and grocery stores. Because all volunteers were seeing the same needs on www.feedthebay.org as well as the web sites of the 32 participating churches, people signed up to volunteer at the location closest to their house. Without Meet The Need, each church would have had a sign-up sheet for members to volunteer to work at the nearest grocery store or food bank – in that case, all of the volunteers at each location would have been from the same church.
What people say about Meet the Need
-
"Meet the Need has proven to be one of the most useful ministry tools available for special event volunteer management. Feed the Bay was a multi-church initiative that provided 270,000 lbs. of food to food banks in the Brandon, FL community. As we planned for this event, we began to see the need for a viable way to manage the 800+ volunteers required to carry out such a huge task. MTN...provided an excellent resource for recruiting…and communicating with volunteers. Feed the Bay Organizer
-
"This was the most uplifting experience ever. What an eye opener! As a result I will be getting more involved in the needs of our community! It was a wonderful experience working with other people I did not know and seeing how everyone pulled together and were able to get the trucks unloaded and the food sorted and boxed." Volunteer
-
"Great day serving with other people to fill our truck! It was so great to be part of a huge ecumenical effort to love people in a practical way!" Volunteer
-
"Was very impressed at the degree of organization of this event. It made being a liaison between food bank and store run extremely smooth." Site Coordinator
