SIFE Hunger Army

Archive for March 2012

This is the General Li doing status update for Team Cash

Team Cash went out twice in the past week and collected $155. Our goal was $200 so we were a bit short on that.
We plan to go out again on Wednesday afternoon, aiming for another $200!!

SHA goes to the Surrey Food Bank!

Thursday, 22 March 2012 by Unknown

Hi there. Janice here. I’m just writing this as I’m on the skytrain because it’s so important and I want to get everything down while it’s fresh in my memory. So just an hour or so ago, Troy, Al, Hao, and I went to visit the Surrey Food Bank for the first time as "generals" of the SIFEHungerArmy. In short, it was a huge eye opener. For myself, it was the first time I had ever been to a food bank actually.

As we walked into the building at around 12pm, there were a bunch of volunteers in a row under a few tents. In front of them were various types of food, like a huge box of green beans. More on this later.

The afternoon started out with a tour led by Katrina Albert, the events and fundraising assistant for the Surrey Food Bank. We got a tour of the warehouse, which was actually bigger than I had imagined. That isn’t to say that it has “more than enough in food”, but due to a spike in donations during the holidays, Katrina mentioned that there would be enough food to last until summer.

Something that Katrina emphasized as she led us through the tour was that the clients of the food bank were normal people, just like us. When she said that, I was a bit taken aback but also a bit hesitant to believe that. Like I said, it being my first time at the food bank, my understanding of a food bank was very shallow. She mentioned that a little group activity they did called "meeting the banks, which involved a role playing session, gave people really good sense of how that was true – something we did later in the tour.

We went to a different part of the warehouse, where volunteers sorted hampers – each different in size, depending on the client’s family size. Something that I should note here is that clients are allowed to collect food here a maximum of once every two weeks. New mothers, on the other hand, were allowed to come every Wednesday to collect items such as formula, diapers, and cereal.

As the tour ended, I saw some clients who had just collected food exit. They looked like any regular people you’d see anywhere and I would’ve never expected them to go to the food bank. Once we were back outside again, I noticed a volunteer help an elderly woman fill a bag with the string beans. Once again, I would’ve never suspected that she went to the food bank either.

Back upstairs, we chatted with Marilyn Herrmann, the executive director of SFB. She pointed to a map of Surrey covered with little orange dots. These dots represent all the households that are clients of SFB. Originally, this map was intended to give them a sense of where they would want to relocate if they ever need to, but I guess it’s a bit hard to choose with this realization. Troy, who lives in Surrey, was shocked and noticed that there were dots in the area he lived in as well.

Katrina, Al, Troy, and myself

Afterwards, we went to the boardroom where we did the “Meet the Bank” roleplay activity. In the situation, Al, who was a single mother of a 5 year old child (played by Hao), had $1520 in monthly income at minimum wage. After deducting basic necessities (not including food), such as tax, rent, utilities, telephone and more, she had only $180 left for everything else. Wow. Being in finance and accounting, I’m a fairly “numbers” sort of person – I admit sometimes I get a bit excited seeing numbers. But not that number. So Katrina was right, this is an issue for normal people.

As I'm finishing up this post on the skytrain, I pull out her name card from my pocket to double check her email, and I notice the back with the SFB slogan. “People Like You”.

IMPORTANT announcement on solicitation guidelines!!!

Tuesday, 20 March 2012 by Al

Hiya! General Al here again to report on the army's backup from the Surrey Food Bank.

Again, we are super excited that the Surrey Food Bank has offered us its endorsement but we need to clear up a few things...

Although all of what we collect will be designated as gifts towards the Surrey Food Bank, our donation endeavours ARE NOT part of the solicitation endeavours of the Surrey Food Bank. We are not collecting for the Surrey Food Bank. We are collecting for the SIFE Hunger Army. In all of our solicitation endeavours, we do not represent the food bank, we represent ourselves and the Army. Please visit the About page to see this update on the guidelines.

Over and Out!

Second team recruited!

Monday, 19 March 2012 by Troy

This is definitely an awesome second post for me. I'm happy to say that there's a team from SFU that's going to be participating in the SIFE Hunger Army. If I were to describe them, it'd have be in terms of dedication. They've been at this can-collecting, hunger fighting, all around awesome thing longer than we have.

I'll cut the pomp and circumstance, here's the SFU Let's Can Hunger team!

Led by Samson McCahon, this team's been very active in regards to fighting hunger. Here are a few examples of what they've done:

The payload of SFU Let's Can Hunger's 'Halloween for Hunger' campaign!

The 'Souper Can' submission from SFU Let's Can Hunger's 'How Creative CAN You Get?' campaign!

They're currently setting the groundwork for their next campaign against hunger. I'll update you once it clears classified status, and let you know how you can support the SFU Let's Can Hunger team!

Signing out for now,

-Troy

Soldiers Report to Duty~!

Thursday, 15 March 2012 by Hao

Hey y'all~!

this is Team Cash and General Li from Burnaby District report to duty.

Our troop consist of 5 members, Emily, Steven, Jeffrey, Daniel and myself

we have Emily specialize in tech support and information gathering

Steven, Jeffrey and Daniel as vanguards.

The main objective of Team Cash is to collect cash donation for the surrey food bank. Our targets consists of people who are currently working in Real Estate, Finance, Banking, and Retail Industry. The operational strategy that we'll be using is quick in quick out. We go to our target, do a quick presentation and collect cash on the spot.

Emily will be in charge of the target list and donation record.

Steven, Jeffrey and Daniel will be in charge of scheduling, making appointment and presentations.

Myself will be in command and assist.

We plan to execute on March 19th, 2012

Status report will be updated from time to time.

Over-

Army Backup!!!!

Wednesday, 14 March 2012 by Al

Hey hey! General Al, here.

So as you can see from Troy’s first post on the blog, the last battle was quite the experience and I’m pretty psyched to be involved with generating a reboot for this battle.

As part of said reboot, we were looking to get more involved with the Surrey Food Bank itself. Janice and I contacted them this week and I’m quite happy to announce that we are joining forces with the Surrey Food Bank!!!

Cue Happy Dance.

Katrina, their Events and Fundraising Assistant immediately got back to us! Katrina thanked us for the support and has offered the bank’s endorsement for the battle. Along with that, their volunteer coordinator, Jenny, is going to pass the message on to the Surrey Food Bank’s volunteers. No pun intended but, I’m really banking on the bank’s volunteers for our army recruitment! :P

And thanks for posting a vid up about this awesome development, Troy! Thought you’d look translate better on camera because you’ve got the prettier face and all...

Recruitment starts now!

Tuesday, 13 March 2012 by Troy

Hi everyone,

So this is my first post here. I thought it'd be nice, since recruitment is starting to enter full swing and the battle's close to starting, to give a bit of context. Here are the two videos that started and ended the previous SIFE Hunger Army campaign.

If you want the behind the scenes story... I actually spent the better part of an entire night working on this shaky 40 second video. It's been worth it though, it sparked a few teams to donate where they generally wouldn't have before. This leads me to the next video:

Honestly, I think this video's a lot more awesome than the previous one. I'd rather not do the whole 'this could be you' spiel, since what this is really about is revealing an underlying issue, that doesn't get enough attention.

I think that's everything for now. I'll be in touch soon with updates. Maybe even our first team? Will let you know.