Giving Thanks

 

The Moveable Feast family (donors, volunteers, staff, etc.) provides meals for Marylanders in need 365 days a year. But it’s around the holidays that our supporters really go the extra mile in making sure that clients not only have meals but also the sense of a loving community around them.

This year for Thanksgiving, we are so excited for our clients to receive the following:

-          Traditional Thanksgiving Dinners: clients will either receive a turkey box comprised of a 14-15 lb turkey, 10 pounds of potatoes, a can of green beans, cranberry sauce, dinner rolls, stuffing mix and a dessert OR a Thanksgiving dinner freshly prepared here in our kitchen and delivered to their doors ready to eat.

-          Festive Thanksgiving Cupcakes: made and donated by our amazing IIDA and BOMA volunteers (read our last post about their cupcake-making event here)

-          Thanksgiving Cards: created by numerous groups, including the Transitional Head Injury Program, IIDA and BOMA.   

We are honored to be able to make Thanksgiving extra special for our clients, and we simply could not and would not be able to do that without Moveable Feast supporters. You are the ones who have put in the time to bake, to create, to prepare and to deliver. You are the ones who make this organization what it is. At this time of the year- when we think about what we are grateful for- there’s no hesitation for Moveable Feast staff in responding: for supporters like YOU.

Thank you!

Cupcakes, Cards and Holiday Cheer

Yesterday, November 17^th, over 40 amazing IIDA and BOMA volunteers entered the fray at our kitchens again. Every November for the past few years, this enthusiastic crew picks a night to take over Moveable Feast and prepare festive treats for our clients.

This year, they had a large task ahead; decorating and beautifully packaging 1,800 Thanksgiving cupcakes. With only three hours to work (and powered by delicious treats provided by Absolutely Perfect Catering), our dedicated volunteers managed to not only prepare and package hundreds of cupcakes, but they also created charming holiday cards and sorted through items they had collected through a food drive. The donated goods alone are enough to offset our grocery purchasing for the rest of the year! We can’t thank our volunteers enough for helping to make the holidays a little sweeter for our clients.

Take a look at some of the highlights from the event!  

Guest Blog: Moveable Feast's Recipe for Successful Volunteer Management

A few weeks ago, Volunteer Maryland’s latest crew of Americorps members (part of their Volunteer Maryland Coordinators program) spent a full day at Moveable Feast volunteering and thinking about the “best practices” of volunteer management. Barb Cooke, a VMC peer leader, was kind enough to share her blog post reflecting on the day and, more specifically, on the recipe for a successful volunteer program. You can find her full blog post here.

Here is how Moveable Feast makes it happen:

Ingredients:
~heartfelt passion
~a solid understanding of the community need and agency mission
~a handful of humility
~knowledge of staff/volunteer investment, policies and documentation
~heaping helping of flexibility
~effective recruitment, orientation/training, and recognition
~healthy sprinkling humor

 

Directions:
1) Have Volunteer Coordinator, Tom Patrick, share his passion and that of Moveable Feast with you. He began “helping out” over 20 years ago and continues to carry the mission of volunteer work at Moveable Feast forward.
2) Choose from several areas in which to commit your time. Our volunteers were divided between the kitchen, garden and office. However, it rained. . .and then it poured. No worries, Tom was quite masterful at finding alternative tasks crucial to the program. Because Moveable Feast’s volunteer procedures and position descriptions are clear and well-defined, the garden group easily took on other responsibilities including, follow-up phone calls and writing Thank You letters to volunteers.
3) Tom was adept at weaving our service that day into the rich tapestry of Moveable Feast history. We also received training in required procedures, were invited (recruited) to return for upcoming events and, walked out feeling like we had made a real difference.
4) If you’re interested in “tasting” Moveable Feast’s recipe for volunteering first hand, contact Tom and add yourself; groups are welcome!

At the conclusion of our Service Day, the Volunteer Maryland Peer Leaders, Joy and I, facilitated small group discussions with the Volunteer Maryland Coordinators reflecting on what we had learned at Moveable Feast. The reflections acknowledged the importance of including flexibility, humor and structure in a successful volunteer program. Each group prepared a demonstration that symbolized their experience. The demonstrations included group spoken word, ingredients to build a volunteer cupcake (Did you wonder where I got the idea for this post?) and a family convincing reluctant teenagers to get involved in service. This opportunity gave the Volunteer Maryland Coordinators personal practice in a successful volunteer experience. Now, they are putting this process into practice as they recruit and manage volunteer programs at their Service Sites.