NORTHEAST IOWA FOOD BANK PREPARES FOR OPPORTUNITIES IN A NEW FACILITY

Construction of the new Northeast Iowa Food Bank warehouse and distribution center is complete! Staff and many volunteers have gathered over the course of several days to move operations to the new site just blocks away at 1605 Lafayette Street. The Food Bank will have fully functioning programming and distribution effective April 3rd. 

The new 45,359-square-foot facility in Waterloo will serve as a food warehouse and distribution center for Northeast Iowa. This facility will provide food to nonprofit agencies serving an estimated 40,000 low-income people annually in a core 16-county service area - nearly 40% of those served are children. Our food reaches children, seniors, families and disabled individuals receiving assistance from food pantries, emergency shelters, meal sites, low-income day cares, senior centers, and residential facilities for the disabled. Our service area includes Allamakee, Black Hawk, Bremer, Buchanan, Butler, Chickasaw, Clayton, Delaware, Fayette, Floyd, Grundy, Howard, Mitchell, Poweshiek, Tama, and Winneshiek counties. The new facility will also house the Cedar Valley Food Pantry which serves over 1,200 households in Black Hawk County every month.

The facility includes a 30,000-square-foot warehouse (with refrigeration and freezer facilities), a dedicated food sorting and repacking space, an expanded pantry area, a commercial kitchen, a volunteer room, and administration and distribution offices. With the addition of this new warehouse and distribution facility, we anticipate distributing upwards of 2 million additional pounds of food within 3 years of the facility being fully operational.

"After much planning, fundraising, organizing and construction the reality of a newly expanded and much more efficient space is finally here! The new Northeast Iowa Food Bank will be an important resource to the Northeast Iowa as well as the thousands of individuals that we serve throughout our 16-county service area," commented Barbara Prather, Executive Director of the Northeast Iowa Food Bank.

Once settled in, the Northeast Iowa Food Bank plans to host an official grand opening celebration on Tuesday, May 21^st from 4 p.m. – 6 p.m. The event will be a picnic and open house with Food Bank staff will offering tours of the facility. A short program will take place at 5 p.m. which will include recognition of lead donors as well as ongoing volunteers.

For further information or to donate and be a part of this project, visit

www.northeastiowafoodbank.org or call 319-235-0507.
 

The Northeast Iowa Food Bank provides nutritious food and grocery products, as well as hunger education, to approximately 200 nonprofit organizations who assist the hungry and individuals who need food assistance to sustain life. Last year, the Food Bank distributed more than 5.2 million pounds of food within a 16-county service area through the Cedar Valley Food Pantry, located at the warehouse site in Waterloo and other food pantries throughout 16 counties; through various programs that service hungry children and senior citizens including the BackPack Program, Kids Cafe, Elderly Nutrition Services, and other organizations who need the services of the Northeast Iowa Food Bank. The Food Bank also provides for under-served communities through the Mobile Food Pantry program. The Food Bank is a member of the Iowa Food Bank Association and Feeding America.

VCCV Weekly Volunteer Opportunities

·     Cedar Bend Humane Society needs volunteers for the Annual Phone-A-Thon. Volunteers will be calling past donors on April 9, 10 and 11 from 6:00 – 8:00 p.m. Volunteers age 18 and over are welcome.

·     The Cedar Falls Blue Zones Project is holding a Walking Moai Kick-Off Event on Thursday, April 11 at all elementary schools in Cedar Falls. Volunteers will assist with registering walkers and assisting with Blue Zones Project website registrations and providing directions from 4:30 – 7:00 p.m.

·     The Grout Museum District needs Girl Scout Fun Days Assistants for "Night Owl Overnight." Assist the scouts by helping them earn the "Night Owl" badge on April 12^th and 13^th at the Grout Museum of History & Science from 7:00 - 9:00 p.m. Volunteers age 16 and over are welcome.

·     The Black Hawk County Solid Waste Management Commission is seeking volunteers that can help with the heavy lifting of old TVs and computer monitors during their electronics recycling event in Waterloo. Volunteers will also be needed for directing traffic, surveys, and helping unload household chemicals from residents’ vehicles. Volunteers are needed April 13^th from 7:40 a.m. to 2:00 p.m. or 7:40 to 12:15 p.m. Volunteers age 18 and over are welcome.

 

 Call 319-272-2087 to volunteer!

 

 

Featured Volunteer - Vilas "Sid" Morris

Vilas “Sid” Morris has been extremely involved in the community! A few of the organizations Sid has helped out include the Western Home Communities, Cedar Valley Visitors and Tourism Bureau, Veteran’s Affairs, Cedar Falls Historical Society, Community Main Street, City of Cedar Falls, and the Volunteer Center of Cedar Valley. Because of his vast range of volunteer experiences, Sid was nominated by Western Home Communities to receive the Lifetime Achievement Volunteer Award.

Congratulations Sid!

Electronics Recycling & Household Toxins Drop-off

The Black Hawk County Solid Waste Management Commission will be partnering with the City of Waterloo to sponsor an electronics recycling event and household hazardous materials drop-off event. ALL Black Hawk County residents are welcome to bring approved household toxic materials and electronics (fees may apply). The drop-off will be held on Saturday, April 13th from 9:00 AM until 2:00 PM at the Waterloo Waste Water Treatment Plant (3505 Easton Ave., Waterloo).

The Black Hawk County Solid Waste Management Commission will be accepting toxic materials from county resident homes for free at the drop-off event. Items such as lawn chemicals, rechargeable batteries, fluorescent light bulbs (compact and tube), propane tanks, old gasoline, mercury thermometers, and much more will be accepted for safe disposal. A list of accepted items can be found at WasteTrac.org or call 266-8722.

The Black Hawk County Solid Waste Management Commission will also be sponsoring an Electronics Recycling Drop-off. Electronics fall into two categories, electronics with CRTs (Cathode Ray Tubes) and electronics without. CRTs are found within older TV sets and older styles of computer monitors. Although not banned from Iowa landfills, electronics with CRTs contain trace amounts of phosphorus, cadmium and 6-8 pounds of lead. The CRT appears in the unit as a funnel-shaped leaded glass tube with a metal frame inside. This shape gives older TV’s and computer monitors that bump in the back. Each vehicle/household bringing items to the event can recycle two CRT (non flat-screen) monitors/televisions for free. Additional CRTs are $5 each (with no limit).

Electronics and electrical items from the bathroom, home office, and kitchen will also be accepted. Items such as vacuums, keyboards, VCR/DVD players, radios, stereos and much more will be recycled. Please refer to the complete recycling list online. Appliances (such as microwaves, stoves, dehumidifiers, washers, dryers, refrigerators) WILL NOT be accepted at the event. Residents are asked to bring exact cash only. Bills larger than $20 will not be accepted.

The following items WILL NOT be accepted at the event: appliances, tires, paint, motor oil, antifreeze, ammunition, fire extinguishers, smoke detectors, asbestos, radioactive materials, or non-hazardous waste.

This event IS NOT the Waterloo City Wide Cleanup Day. To dispose of appliances or large bulk items, please call your city public works office.

For paint drying tips and list of automotive fluid recyclers, please call the Waste Trac Education Team (266-8722).

REMINDER: Electronics waste and hazardous materials from businesses will not be accepted. A complete list of items that will and will not be accepted at the event can be found at WasteTrac.org.

For more information about the April 13th event, please visit WasteTrac.org or call the Waste Trac Education Team for the Black Hawk Co. Solid Waste Management Commission at 266-8722.

Featured Volunteer - Maynard Murch

Featured Volunteer - Maynard Murch

Maynard Murch has always been an active volunteer! Many organizations have benefited from his help such as Black Hawk County 4-H, Bennington Neighborhood Association, St. Francis Church, St. Mary’s Catholic Church, Allen Hospital, Catholic Order of Foresters, Mt. Olivet Cemetery Board of Directors, and many more. Charlotte Nielson at Speer Financial has nominated Maynard for the Lifetime Achievement Volunteer Award.

Congratulations Maynard!

Tip of the Month: "The Role of Intermediary"

In most cases, the person responsible for volunteer involvement finds and prepares volunteers, but then day-to-day supervision and teamwork occur at the front line between volunteers and the paid staff in each department and unit. So a key role of volunteer management is serving as an intermediary. Depending on the situation, this role can be consultant, educator, liaison, advocate, advisor, arbiter, or cheerleader.

 

Certainly implies a lot of different skills, doesn't it?

 

Part of the challenge is balancing the needs and perspectives of a range of stakeholders.

 

Volunteers

Volunteers are obviously the stakeholders who come to mind first - although it doesn't hurt to keep reminding your colleagues that volunteers are not "yours"; they are everyone's responsibility. And if anything, you are their liaison.

 

The volunteer office is the point of entry into the organization for all volunteers. We're the people they usually meet first and they form their opinions and expectations of volunteering from us. We "enroll" them and - just as a human resources department does for employees - we interview and orient them, keep their records, track their progress, and more. If any disagreement occurs between volunteers and the employees to whom they are assigned, the volunteer office is the most logical third party to involve in the resolution of the problem.

 

We have an obligation to any volunteer to be an advocate, willing to challenge paid staff if that volunteer is not treated well. We start this advocacy when we advise on creating volunteer assignments that are truly meaningful. But we also have the obligation to give a volunteer honest feedback if that person is contributing to a conflict. We are also the ones who should monitor that all volunteers are growing and thriving in their roles, when they deserve recognition, and when they might need or want to move into another type of assignment.

 

We must also give volunteers the chance to speak for themselves. Forming a genuine advisory council or steering committee of representative volunteers shares ownership and creates allies in talking to all the other stakeholders in the organization.

 

Paid Staff Who Work with Volunteers

Clearly, we also have a responsibility to the employees who have been asked to partner with volunteers. This begins with recruiting the best and most-qualified volunteers possible and preparing them to hit the ground running once placed in a unit.

 

It's vital to be a good listener in our role of intermediary with paid staff - and not to become defensive when we hear comments that are based on inaccurate or unknowledgeable assumptions. We have to empathize with employees who, almost by definition in most organizations, are overworked (and often underpaid) and to whom volunteers may offer help but also - let's be honest - more work, too. How can we adapt to the employee's needs when legitimate, such as paying attention to times during the week that a volunteer may be more a distraction than assistance? Or is it fair to ask the same staff person to keep training a parade of new volunteers when we might create a leadership role for an already-experienced volunteer to welcome newcomers?

 

More than anything, when it comes to employees, we are educators. So few professions include courses on working with volunteers in professional/academic education. Staff may not even know what they don't know about volunteers! The volunteer resources manager has to provide formal training to new staff and in-service training to all staff but, most critically, must find opportunities to consult with individual employees to improve their volunteer management skills as situations arise in daily work.

 

Middle Management Holding Frontline Staff Accountable

Middle managers - unit supervisors, program coordinators, branch directors, etc. - could be considered the invisible obstacle to successful volunteer/staff relations. Why? Because they are very important yet usually overlooked at several key stages of volunteer engagement. The leader of volunteers should ensure that:

• Middle managers participate in developing and sign off on volunteer position descriptions in their area of responsibility.
• Middle managers see the time their reports spend with volunteers not as an interruption or distraction from their work, but as vital to accomplishing priorities.
• Both overt and implied messages middle managers give to their paid and volunteer staff members in unit meetings convey the value of volunteers.
• Middle managers themselves partner with volunteers in getting their own work done - and are thanked for this teamwork.

Top Administration (Including the Volunteer Board)

We understand the importance of the executive and board of directors as those "above" us -- the ones who make key decisions, allocate resources, determine priorities, and judge our effectiveness. But what about our importance to them?

 

Depending on the size of your organization, top executives and the board may be quite removed from seeing the daily impact of non-board volunteers and completely unaware of the contributions of the volunteer office to the process. Is the subject of volunteering on the agenda at any management team or board meeting? Based on what information? Have you asked to present at such a meeting?

 

Volunteer resources managers once again must be advocates to bring attention to volunteers as time donors, highlighting the importance of donated skills in the spectrum of other community support and side-by-side with financial gifts. We must speak the language of the organization's decision makers, not simply as cheerleaders (though enthusiasm is important) but as representatives of an in-house treasure trove of great talent.

 

The Recipients of Service

Different organizations take varying approaches to their clientele, but all too often the services offered to those clients are determined solely by the paid staff or funding source. That does not need to be the way volunteer services are provided. We can talk with as well as to the recipients of service to assure volunteers that what they are doing is truly of help. We can even enlist the clients themselves - or past clients or client families and friends - as volunteers, when appropriate. And if we have our finger on the true pulse of client wishes, think how useful our knowledge can be to every one of the stakeholder groups above!

 

Thank you to Energize, Inc. at http://www.energizeinc.com/.

April Featured Volunteer - Lorraine Clark

Each day during the month of April a nominee for the Mayors' Volunteer Awards will be featured.

 

Lorraine Clark is an awesome volunteer! Since day one of moving in at Friendship Village, she has been active. Because of Lorraine’s commitment to service, Friendship Village has nominated Lorraine to be a Mayors’ Volunteer Award recipient. Be part of this special event on April 23 at the Five Sullivan Brothers Convention Center. Contact the Volunteer Center of Cedar Valley for more information.

Congratulations Lorraine!