Deanna Kemperman - Cranbrook Food Bank
Today I have the pleasure of introducing our first featured person for the Heart of the Community Project, Deanna Kemperman - Board Secretary and Office Coordinator at the Cranbrook Food Bank Society.
What is you role or position at this organization?
I work in the office myself greeting clients by phone and in-person, booking client food hamper appointments which are transferred to our 5 packing stations. We also greet them when they return to pick up their hampers, maintain database entries as per Food Banks BC guidelines, keep track of daily incoming and outgoing total lbs of food, and receive public inquiries such as donations or offers to volunteer. We share monthly statistics with our Food Bank Board and Food Banks BC and I am the liaison to our Cranbrook Social Committee where other social programs meet monthly. I maintain our Food Bank social media and website. Since Covid-19 I still coordinate the office volunteers but am now also here daily helping with and sharing the supervision of daily operations with our Manager.
How has the current Covid-19 situation affected your daily operation?
With the focus now on safety of volunteers, clients and public, we have switched to delivering 90% of our food hampers. Delivery drivers and some clients now receive their food bags through an outside window. (The downside is we are missing the F2F contact with our clients!). We lost 50% of our regular volunteers who reluctantly stopped coming in due to their higher health risks, so we put a request out to the community for more volunteers including 22 Hamper Delivery Drivers. The virus has highlighted existing problems and especially our need to move our warehouse and Food Bank to a single, larger location! To attempt social distancing in this small building we have staggered our volunteer shifts and warehouse runs over 5 or 6 days/week. We shortened shifts and try not to schedule shifts longer than 3 hrs for volunteers over 60 years old. We hired a professional janitorial service to do the daily CDC-recommended bleaching of surfaces and floors. All volunteers inside the building wear homemade masks. We purchase more food.
What positive or uplifting things are you seeing during this situation?
This past month has been so hard reorganizing for the virus … but the positives far outweigh the negatives. Our Board is absolutely humbled by community and support – donating food, cash and volunteer hours. (Within a few weeks of asking for volunteers, we had 65 offers to be on our Call-Out list!) The vast majority of clients, volunteers and public are so appreciative, trying to stay positive and helpful towards each other. Seeing the networking between grocery stores, Cranbrook Food Recovery Program and other Cranbrook social organizations. No egos, just an altruistic attitude of working together to serve those in need in the best way possible.
How are you finding joy right now?
It’s incredibly rewarding seeing so many good people working together to make things better for others. I trust the motives and integrity of every one of our Board members – they, our clients, volunteers, the public and other social organizations in this town, are a pleasure to work with. Also I personally love troubleshooting solutions to problems, so like my previous healthcare career, Covid-19 has presented plenty of problems to find solutions for!
Is there anything you would like to share, or wish people knew right now?
Well, other than the positives already mentioned, probably this - Food Banks were created and still exist for times such as these! If you have never used a Food Bank before but are struggling right now from Covid-19-related job layoffs, we can help. Phone 9:30am to 12:30pm Mondays, Wednesdays or Fridays and we’ll book you a food hamper for that afternoon. Using the Food Bank once or twice a month can help a lot. We are here for working families too. Many thanks to Deanna, and everyone else that is helping the Cranbrook Food Bank provide for our community.