The Strength of Relationships

Pace Academy students help Second Helpings Atlanta rescue food.

Second Helpings Atlanta (SHA) is on a roll! Last month, we rescued our 5 millionth pound of food! So far this year, our army of active volunteers has grown by 20%, and we’ve rescued 65% more food than the same period a year ago. We even welcomed our first corporate sponsor, Cox Automotive, who gave us money to help offset the costs associated with our Corporate Kitchen Food Rescue Program.

As a co-founder of SHA, I couldn’t be more proud of these milestones. When Guenther Hecht, Shirley Leaderman and I created a food rescue community service project in 2004, we envisioned a close, personal bond among volunteers— a vibrant community of neighbors helping neighbors that would expand in scope and impact over time. Halley Morochnik’s June blog perfectly illustrates the powerful effect our volunteer work has on others, inspiring them to become involved!

The value SHA places on personal relationships informs everything we do, and the way we communicate with others, both within our organization and in the community, reflects our organizational culture. We are affecting positive change – not only by the work we do, but by the way in which we do it. It is vitally important that our organization maintains its intimate, grass roots feel and we express our special, personal culture, even as we grow.

As we broaden our media presence, share our unique brand and strengthen our analytics capabilities, we are looking for some talented volunteers. That’s where you come in, especially those of you with experience in social media, email marketing, and web developmment. If you are skilled at creating and managing online profiles, have expertise with SQL and/or Salesforce (especially revolving around Application development with Salesforce), or are a web developer that can trouble-shoot code and solve server side issues, please email me at asrallen@gmail.com. We would love to work with you. If your skills don’t fit the bill but you know someone who could help, please encourage them to reach out to me.

Thanks so much for being a member of the SHA family!