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chapelhill.porchcommunities.org |
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Hello!
Welcome to the quarterly message that we send to all PORCH Neighborhood Coordinators (NCs), hoping that it will provide support and inspiration for the incredible work that you do.
You play such a pivotal role in our organization – there’s a reason you’re often called the “heart and soul” of PORCH. But we know that it’s not easy to keep up the momentum with each passing month and year. We are working on a comprehensive plan to better serve you and make your ongoing efforts more seamless.
In the coming weeks, when we see you at Extraordinary Ventures, we will offer some printed materials to help you promote PORCH within your neighborhood in order to increase interest.
For now, we’re sharing some useful digital materials. Feel free to copy and paste the parts you like, tweak the verbiage to make it sound more like you, and put it on PORCH letterhead (download our logo here).
Here is some language you can send to new neighbors explaining what PORCH is, how you operate as a Neighborhood Coordinator, and how they can help. (You can also borrow some of this verbiage to write a handwritten note – or to print out a letter and leave on doorsteps.)
Here is a templated note for quick reminders about when pickup day is and what kind of food items you’re hoping to collect.
Here is a templated thank you note you can send after you collect items – this congratulates your neighbors on a successful month (complete with tallies!) and encourages them to save future PORCH dates in their calendar.
Below is a quick look at PORCH by the numbers, which is useful to pass along to someone who may be completely unfamiliar with our work.
If you are interested in scheduling a one-on-one consultation with our team to discuss ways you can inject energy into your neighborhood’s PORCH activities, please email us at chc@porchcommunities.org. We’d be happy to brainstorm with you!
Best,
The PORCH Team
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PORCH, By the Numbers
- In 2020, we nearly doubled our impact over the previous year, delivering $730,000 in hunger relief.
- Our new program called Food for Emergencies provided $35,000 in grocery gift cards in 2020 – to partners like El Centro Hispano, Club Nova, and Meals on Wheels of Orange County.
- Food for Families served an average of 485 food insecure families each month in 2020.
- 87 percent of participants in our Food for Families program report less income due to COVID.
- On average, we have about 200 monthly volunteers.
- Since our founding in 2010, we have provided $3.5 million in hunger relief.
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Give Your Pickups a Boost This Fall!
If you’ve noticed there is an ebb in food donations from your neighborhood, here are some tips for increasing the flow:
- Once a year, send an email to all of your neighbors reminding them about this very simple way to participate in local hunger relief.
- Find 10-15 families who are willing to participate by donating food each month. Inundating the neighborhood listserv isn’t nearly as effective as identifying your core group and reaching out to them directly to remind them about PORCH dates. (We recommend using the listserv a couple of times of year to promote a special PORCH food drive, however!)
- Go door-to-door with PORCH postcards that include your contact information. We are working on providing these in the coming weeks.
- After each neighborhood drive, add a personal note to PORCH’s thank you email, recognizing your neighbors’ loyal participation. Pictures are a nice addition, too.
- From time to time, consider handwritten thank you notes to generous neighborhood donors.
- Put out your PORCH yard sign(s) each month, two or three days before the scheduled pick-ups, to remind neighbors that it’s time to purchase a few extra items at the grocery store to help restock the shelves of local pantries.
- If someone is new to the neighborhood, be sure to introduce yourself and PORCH! Get to the heart of your “why” – why is this work important to you? Why do you set aside time each month to help PORCH? Your neighbors will respond well to you telling your story.
- Ask each loyal participant to try to recruit one additional neighbor by sending a personal introductory note.
- Remind your listserv from time to time that you’re the PORCH Neighborhood Coordinator – and make it easy for folks to contact you if they want to get involved.
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Share a compelling PORCH social media post (we’re on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter) from time to time, reminding your network about who we are and what we do within the community. Help keep us top of mind!
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Help Recruit Fellow PORCH Neighborhood Coordinators!
We are seeking some additional NCs!
Here are a couple of ways you can help us with recruitment.
First, if you know of someone outside of your neighborhood who may be well suited for the role of Neighborhood Coordinator, please send them a compelling note explaining why you do this work and how rewarded you feel by it. You can pass along the link to this page, which gets into the nuts and bolts of this work; it includes this very handy video.
Encourage them to get in touch with us at chc@porchcommunities.org if they are interested in becoming a Neighborhood Coordinator. The more heartfelt your pitch, the better! But you can also include some of the impressive stats found in our 2020 annual report.
Secondly, if you’d like to tell your story about how you got involved in PORCH and how much you enjoy your role as Neighborhood Coordinator, we’d love to share that on social media in an effort to recruit more loyal volunteers like you. Email andrea.cash@porchcommunities.org to be featured – she can conduct a quick interview over the phone or via email.
And if you have a story to share about an outstanding neighborhood participant – for example, someone who asked party guests to make a donation to PORCH in lieu of birthday presents – please send those to Andrea as well.
Thank you for all you do for PORCH! We look forward to seeing you at Extraordinary Ventures on Sept. 19 and 20!
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PO Box 16363
Chapel Hill, NC 27516
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