Helping Hand is a tax-exempt not-for-profit food bank that serves all of Johnson County, Washington. Helping Hand's goal is to alleviate hunger in Johnson County by soliciting, collecting, growing, and packaging food for distribution through a network of service agencies and programs that serve our target population groups. Our services include food box programs, emergency food programs, and a youth farm that provides opportunities for self-sufficiency activities for "at risk" youth. Helping Hand receives support from the county, charitable organizations and corporate sponsorship.
Approximately 20% of Johnson County residents qualify for assistance from Helping Hand. Our client base is low-income people, mainly families, who need emergency help to put food on the table. Nearly half of those served by the program are children. Helping Hand operates a warehouse facility where we store donated or rescued food for distribution. The program actively solicits food from local food growers, retailers, wholesalers, and processors. In addition, Helping Hand collect food donations from restaurants for immediate distribution to service programs.
It is estimated that the number of children who need services from Helping Hand will increase during the next five years. Johnson County is growing and a number of new families are entering the area to look for employment. A number of programs exist to help transition these new families into the county. Helping Hand is an important resource to these programs because we can respond quickly with the one of the most important resources these families need. Food!
Our services improves the ability of families to care for children and achieve goals of self-sufficiency. Helping Hand's services, now, are a small investment in comparison to cost of ignoring the problem of hunger in the county and the influence it has on a number of health and crime issues.
1.1 Mission
The mission of Helping Hands is to alleviate hunger in Johnson County by soliciting, collecting, growing, and packaging food for distribution through a network of agencies and programs, as well as provide opportunities for self sufficiency. Our services include food box programs, emergency shelters, congregate meal sites, residential treatment services, and children's programs.
1.2 Objectives
This new initiative is designed to create a food bank that will serve all of Johnson County, Washington. Our objectives are:
- Establish donation network of local growers, retailers, wholesalers, and processors in Johnson County.
- Establish youth farm that will employ "at risk" youth.
- Collect over four million pounds of food the first year of operation. Increase collection amount by 20% each year.
- Effectively distribute the food to low-income families that make up over 20% of Johnson County.
- Acquire $200,000 of start-up funding through corporate, private charities and government financial support.
- Raise an additional $100,000 in fundraising activity.
