Venture Field: Youth Volunteer Service

Year of Venture Launch: 2006

Name: Katie Role in the Venture: President

Venture Description: Our venture is about giving food baskets to the needy in our community. We have been doing this for roughly one year. We give out 10 food baskets to needy people in our community each and every month. We do about 12-13 in the holiday season. We get the food for the food baskets from our gardens that we grow and from the New Hampshire Food Bank. Our whole 4-H club is involved in this; we have 5 members in our club. This has helped many people in our community and will help many more.

Venture Origin: We knew there were a lot of people in our area who needed food. We also wanted to do a community service and we thought that giving fresh food to people who need them in our community would be good idea. We wanted to make sure that even people in need had access to fresh produce and good food.

Innovation: We offer free food to feed a family of four who need it. We also deliver this food basket right to their house so they don't have to worry about getting a car and going somewhere. This, we found was very good for the elderly, because some of them have a hard time getting around.

Impact

Impact: We have been giving 10 food baskets each month to families who need it. We have been doing the venture for about eleven months and we have helped 24 families in need. This has helped them get along even better when they might have had a rough spot.

Engagement with the community: We have put out bulletins asking people if they could help donate fresh fruit and vegtables to go to the food baskets. We currently have 6 families helping donate fruit, vegtables, meats, eggs, and other products. We encourge as many people to help with this and if they help then that it makes the baskets even greater!

Impact and engagement progress since launch: When we first started it was mainly the 4-H group so we were getting to know what to get and how much to get at the NH Food Bank, and what vegetables to grow and how much to grow for the baskets. Now we have several families help donate and we know what is better and easier for the people to prepare. Also we know what they like more and what they enjoy more.

Impact and engagement strategy: Well we still want to put bulletins out to see if people want to help. Also word of mouth has been doing well. Also if more families in need contact us then maybe we could give out even more food baskets a month.

Awards: We have not won any awards yet.

Budget

Amount of Youth Venture seed grant: $947.00

Money raised: We have done many fundraisers and we have made about $230.00 from selling our excess produce at the farmers market, and we also received $275 in donations from business.

Creative ways of raising resources: Well we give them our buisness cards and we also deliever to them and we try and get to know them personally. We communicate with them whether it is through e-mail or on the telephone, and through a display at a farmers conference.

Strategy

Expansion plan for next 6 months: We plan to involve more families with donating. We also want to have more families lined up who need the food so we can give more during the holiday season.

Plans for sustaining the project: We have a lot of people who are willing to donate money to our venture and we also have a lot of people who want to donate their time and produce. We also want to have more people involved in our 4-H group and for them to help out and find families on their own so we can help them.

Vision for three years from now: We hope to have atleast 20-25 food baskets a month. Also we hope to be recognized in our community as people who help others and we want people to help our community too. Also hopefully there will be a lot more fresh produce from our community going into the food baskets.

Project impact: We have helped many people, each month, get food on their table. We have given these families a little light where it might have been dark. Hopefully what we are doing for people in our community might enighten some people to try and do somting for their community as well. The people we have helped we now have a personal relationship with them and we hope to have that with all the families we help.

Youth Venture movement - what it means and how you can contribute: It feels very good to be apart of Youth Venture. We are glad to be apart of an organization that gives the chance to help so many people get started in serving their community. We hope to introduce more people to Youth Venture and have them start ventures of their own. Hopefully more people will join and start helping even more people, animals, plants, and trees.

Author:
Katie
United States