For kids who receive school meals, the summer months can be the hungriest time of year. Emma Anne Hallman, School Nutrition Director of Haleyville City Schools (HCS), saw this need in her community and was determined to meet it. This summer, Emma and her team operated rural non-congregate feeding. With 7 distributions, every 10 days, they were able to serve 170,260 meals!
When Emma Anne told us this, we were astounded and amazed. The sheer scope/impact goes to show just how intentional and innovative they were. We had the privilege of sitting down with Emma Anne, and learning more about what goes on behind the scenes to meet the community’s high need.
Better Together: Innovative Partnerships
There are so many gifted individuals with diverse work experience on the HCS Nutrition team, and this has made the difference in their distribution.
In House Collaboration
From a school resources officer (Ron Harper) to a handyman project manager who is a former state trooper (Steve Bryant), Emma Anne could put heads together to perfect car queues and site layout. Even HCS’ Maintenance Supervisor also partnered with Ron and Steve, and always made sure that the portable freezers and coolers brought in were working. With her talented teams’ support, Emma Anne was also able to create an informative, detailed graphic that improved traffic flow at sites to serve and reach more families efficiently. This traffic management would not be possible without individuals like Ron, Steve, and Luke.
Local Police
HCS Nutrition also has a strong relationship with their local police. This connection led to a neat project where the police brought their drone to film the site and the innovative process! This drone footage can be used for future promotion of their summer program, and is a great way to reach more families.
*Drone Footage will be in an embedded video below, in lieu of this stock mountain video*
Volunteers
Staffing can also be a barrier for summer programs. However, Emma Anne and her team partnered a lot with local community organizations, groups, churches, and more. Collaborating with volunteer organizations and individuals is a great way to make the program affordable, sustainable, and also bring awareness to the summer program itself!
Emma Anne and her team sent appreciation and highlighted these volunteer partnerships on social media as well. This is just another way to boost interest and advertise there are opportunities for your local community to volunteer and support the program!
If you want to learn more about how to attract volunteers and make your summer non-congregate program more sustainable, check out these resources that contain best practices, models, and toolkits!
A New System: Ticketing App System
In partnership with No Kid Hungry Alabama, Emma Anne created an ingenious, innovative way to manage site registration and implementation day of. Through an app/platform called Ticket Harmony, she created a bi-weekly registration process where participants would get meal tickets at 10 am. These tickets would be emailed and in their inbox, ready to be used the day of pick-up.
Not only did it make families’ lives easier, it also sped up the registration process and mitigated/reduced traffic/congestion. Furthermore, Emma Anne could use this ticketing system to track and even identify any potential duplication. Due to popular demand, Emma Anne is already brainstorming how to have more tickets and expand this system!
Following Up: Post Program Survey
Despite serving record high meals, Emma Anne is determined to innovate and be even better for next year. Post program surveys are great for gathering feedback from your own target demographic/community and getting information when it is fresh in families’ minds. For Emma Anne, she received helpful feedback on the cadence and volume of tickets offered in her ticketing system. This has helped her gauge realistic need in her community, and also identify the most effective way to serve more kids next summer.
For more resources and examples of information gathering, check out this list below from seasoned sponsors and community based organizations, who have identified all kinds of way to gather feedback before, during, and after the summer.
Social Media Promotion
Although the HCS Nutrition Team had many tools and ample staff to support, social media promotion was key/pivotal to getting the word out and raising awareness of the summer non-congregate program – especially as a first time sponsor. With help from Sea Level Social, she created all kinds of social media posts and promotions.
Starting in early May, Emma Anne and her team posted on social media about their new summer non-congregate program. They intentionally combined marketing posts with crucial information, such as FAQs on the new ticketing system, and “Before You Go” reminders. In addition, Haleyville assessed their community demographic and knew they wanted to reach the Hispanic Latino community.
Language accessibility can be such a barrier for all kinds of families, so Emma Anne had social media posts and flyers translated in Spanish as well. Promoting it very early on the most relevant platform for your community is an effective way to raise awareness and serve more kids!
