Mike’s Monday for Mar. 4th,2019.
MONEY! MONEY! MONEY!
Part of my job with the Gleaners is to check the post office box once a week. Most weeks, it’s empty. But probably because of the weather, neither Margaret or I checked it last week and we had a bumper crop of letters. Even more outstanding, we had a bumper crop of DONATIONS. We got a donation of $43.49 from Fred Meyer, $5.25 from Schwan’s, and a pending donation of $30+ from AmazonSmile. Brandy just needs to turn in the appropriate banking information. She also wants me to mention that you can tie your purchases/rewards cards with these businesses to the Gleaners. Then we can receive a small %age of your purchase as a donation. Brandy, can you explain again how to do this?
We also received a $100 donation from someone simply known as Kim. If you’re out there Kim, THANK YOU. And finally, we received a donation from a local foundation for (drum roll please)… $21,591.99. Brandy worked hard to put together a grant proposal to cover a major equipment and infrastructure upgrade and it really paid off (no pun intended). We’ll finally be able to increase our supply of ladders and pickers for gathering fruit, scales so we can have more gleans running concurrently, and plastic produce crates to make sure that our bounty doesn’t get bruised before it makes it to those who need it.
Even though we have a sudden influx of money, we are still planning a silent auction for later on this spring or early summer. Current efforts are being focused on finding a suitable date and venue. We were shooting for the end of April, but noticed that several other non-profits have events planned for that weekend. If possible, we’d rather not have a lot of competition for our event. If you have a craft item or something else of value that you’d like to donate to the auction, please contact Margaret Rose Nyberg.
We’re still looking for someone to become our MEMBERSHIP COORDINATOR. I’m pretty sure we haven’t gotten any applications yet. The job doesn’t take a whole lot of time it can take as little as 30 seconds a day, but it is a DAILY job. As the membership coordinator, you’d be the gatekeeper, in charge of who gets into the group, and making sure they know the rules. You’d also be responsible for answering any queries (either by phone, text, email, or FB) from potential members or directing them to BoD members that can. That means you need to be outgoing and passionate about gleaning and helping people. THIS IS A BOARD POSITION. If you have questions, please contact Brandy. To apply for this position, email your resume and/or letter of candidacy to the BoD at [email protected]. Deadline for applying is March 15th. Please read the job description: https://goo.gl/nq5xhU
Last thing for this week, Brandy is conducting a membership audit. According to our books we have over 700 members, but very few are truly active. She’s contacting everyone who’s been in for a year(ish) or more but hasn’t been on a glean, and/or hasn’t volunteered yet. She’ll be making sure they understand how to sign up for a glean and our volunteer requirements. 🙂 They’re not stringent, after all. If you fit that description, you can expect a phone call or email. Please take a few moments to respond promptly. Those that don’t respond will be removed from the FB group and email lists.
Until Next Week,
Mike