By Zoey Jordan Salsbury | Deputy Director
Over the last few months, MEANS has gained new users throughout Florida, especially in the Jacksonville area. Similarly to our last report, many of these users found us organically. Our Executive Director and Co-Founder, Maria Rose Belding, was honored as one of this year’s Top 10 CNN Heroes for her work with MEANS. She was introduced by Will Ferrell and her speech was seen by over 600,000 people. This has led to a huge influx of new users and volunteers, many in the Florida area, so we’re trying to connect with all of them!
So far, most of our new users in Florida have been recipient organizations. Recipient organizations are nonprofits like food pantries, food banks, shelters, and more. In other states and cities where MEANS works, we have found we need approximately 5-10 recipient organizations per donor in order to have donations be successfully claimed on a regular basis.
Now that we are approaching that number, we are beginning to shift our focus to food donor recruitment. Later this month we are sending out our “Getting Started” guide for volunteers. We have had many inquiries from those who want to spread the word about MEANS to their favorite restaurants and food establishments. This kit will include the everything volunteers need to become MEANS experts and recruit new donors.
We have secured a translator who will be translating the entire MEANS website into Spanish to make it accessible to those who either do not speak English, or speak it as a second language. Currently, MEANS is available in Arabic, Urdu, and Persian thanks to our partnership with Islamic Relief USA. We’re excited to make our site accessible in even more languages!
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