How to get food to the communities in need.

In a crisis such as the spread of COVID-19, many communities are put under an immense amount of economic pressure. With jobless claims rising, more families than ever seen in our modern times are in need of food. In response, the government has funded an initiative that aims to support these hungry families. As you can imagine, there are a lot of moving parts to get the excess food from farmers all the way to the hands of our hungry neighbors. At Harvest, we and our partners are focused on bridging as many gaps in the process as possible. If you’ve been wondering how you can get involved, below are three suggestions that might help alleviate some of the gaps.

1. Food Banks are the big thing.

If you decide that your organization can serve as a Food Bank, then please let us know. Any qualified non-profit can work directly with any one of the distributors who were awarded with a contract. They can visit this page to see a full list of the distributors with contracts for the program. Simply click on your region from the list and then contact information will come up for all the suppliers in your region.

HIS Envoy’s role in all of this is simply to help aid in the connections that need to be made. This program, through the USDA, does not focus on helping to connect non-profits and suppliers. Rather, they leave it up to all the different organizations to make their own contacts. We have a unique position to help connect Food Banks and Distributors. Envoy, our sister company, is one of the largest suppliers of 403(b) plans to non-profits across the states. Because of this, we have many pre-existing relationships with organizations who can greatly benefit to partnering together through this crisis. We simply want to do our role in helping to provide food for the many families in need.

2. Distributors and logistics help.

There are two parts to this one. There are 198 approved distributors. Part of what we are doing is making calls to as many of them as possible. The more of them we are able to build connections with, the better. If you are a distributor with excess food, or among one of the 198 with approved bids from the USDA, we would love to work with you. We can help connect you with many different Food Banks and other non-profits. Harvest is focused on creating as many different links as possible. The second part is of course the logistical component. While the distributors are responsible for packing trucks and driving them to the various locations, there are often gaps that arise. In some cases, a distributor has food for areas outside of their region. Or in other cases, a distributor doesn’t have the bandwidth to supply an areas with as much as they need. We are attempting to partner with more companies who can help us bring solutions to the table.

3. Donate your time, money, or connections.

This one is obviously a little more general but we didn’t want to not mention them. In addition to that, these are options that individuals can more easily participate in. Whether your time, money, or connections, we are hoping to pool together our resources as much as possible. You can donate through this link right here to a non-profit who is aiming to fund some of the different efforts going on, as it relates to feeding hungry families in America. If you have time, please reach out to us and we will help connect you with a non-profit in your area. Of course, one of the last pieces we would like to mention is simply additional connections. The more people you can connect us with, the better. Like previously mentioned, Harvest’s goal is to help create links between distributors and the Food Banks, to increase the flow of food in many communities in need.

Thank you for taking time to read through our material. We know and recognize that your time is valuable. Please feel free to fill out the form in the section below, or give us a call. We are happy to talk!