2011 Timeline It was another busy and productive year at Good Cheer! Unemployment rates re- mained high (above 9%) for most of 2011, and Good Cheer Food Bank served an average of 842 families a month. Though the number of individual clients contin- ues to drop from a high wa- termark in the year 2009, those needing the Food Bank relied upon it more often and more heavily as their unemployment resources were exhausted. Thanks to the recent completion of Continued on back page 2011: A Year of Innovative Programs; Meeting Needs; and Preparing for the Next 50 Years Now celebrating 50 years of service... 2011 Annual Report Bastyr University student Monica Horn taught a well-attended class on the USDA’s new food model program, My Plate. Good Cheer staff accepted a $5,000 Award for Excellence for Community Resource Development from Food Lifeline at its annual conference. Good Cheer Food Bank & Thrift Stores Good Cheer Food Bank had a record 17,395 visits in 2011 which were handled 99% of the time by VOLUNTEERS. Good Cheer staff took part in several special events in Langley to benefit the Food Bank. Phase II of Good Cheer’s capital campaign, Good Cheer is on a good footing to face the next 50 years of service to the South Whidbey community. Fifty years! Hard to be- lieve that in 2012 half a century will have passed since a small group of friends embarked on a mis- sion of helping families have a brighter Christmas. Little could they envision the model program which sprang from their neighborly act of kindness. Good Cheer had another strong year. Our monetary donations were the second highest on record: we completed the capital campaign; item donations were at an all-time high, as were food donations. Our volunteer hours remain high, though ask any volunteer and they will be the first to say we need more VOLUNTEERS. Food Lifeline, a local hunger relief organization, presented Good Cheer with the Excellence in Community Resource Development award and $5,000 for our exemplary approaches to ending hunger by engaging the lo- cal community in volunteering. Innovation continues to be a hall- mark of Good Cheer. This year we expanded our grocery rescue program. In most cases the do- nations result in more selections for our clients, but there are also times when the product is beyond its shelf life but not necessarily needing to go Good Cheer’s truck now sports new messages which encourage volunteers and support.
Transcript
2011 Timeline
It was another busy and productive year at Good Cheer!
Unemployment rates re-mained high (above 9%) for most of 2011, and Good Cheer Food Bank served an average of 842 families a month. Though the number of individual clients contin-ues to drop from a high wa-termark in the year 2009, those needing the Food Bank relied upon it more often and more heavily as their unemployment resources were exhausted.
Thanks to the recent completion of
Continued on back page
2011: A Year of Innovative Programs; Meeting Needs; and Preparing for the Next 50 Years
Now celebrating 50 years of service...
2011 Annual Report
Bastyr University student Monica Horn taught a well-attended class on the USDA’s new food model program, My Plate.
Good Cheer staff accepted a $5,000 Award for Excellence for Community Resource Development from Food Lifeline at its annual conference.
Good Cheer Food Bank & Thrift Stores
Good Cheer Food Bank had a record 17,395 visits in 2011 which were handled 99% of
the time by VOLUNTEERS.
Good Cheer staff took part in several special events in Langley to benefit the Food Bank.
Phase II of Good Cheer’s capital campaign, Good Cheer is on a good footing to face the next 50 years of service to the South Whidbey community.
Fifty years! Hard to be-lieve that in 2012 half a century will have passed since a small group of friends embarked on a mis-sion of helping families have a brighter Christmas.
Little could they envision the model program which sprang from their neighborly act of kindness.
Good Cheer had another strong year. Our monetary donations were the second highest on record: we completed the capital campaign; item donations were at an all-time high, as were food donations.
Our volunteer hours remain high, though ask any volunteer and they
will be the first to say we need more VOLUNTEERS.
Food Lifeline, a local hunger relief organization, presented Good Cheer with the Excellence in Community Resource Development award and $5,000 for our exemplary approaches to ending hunger by engaging the lo-cal community in volunteering.
Innovation continues to be a hall-mark of Good Cheer.
This year we expanded our grocery rescue program. In most cases the do-nations result in more selections for our clients, but there are also times when the product is beyond its shelf life but not necessarily needing to go
Good Cheer’s truck now sports new messages which encourage volunteers and support.
$0
$100,000
$200,000
$300,000
$400,000
$500,000
$600,000
$700,000
$0
$100,000
$200,000
$300,000
$400,000
$500,000
$600,000
$700,000
Whidbey Island Bank Branch Managers Anne Bobinac and Pam Bickel organized a Community Challenge to help complete the capital campaign.
Sales revenues increased to a total of $677,255 – a new high in the history of Good Cheer Thrift Stores, and an increase of $23,776 over 2010 – even though the Langley Thrift Store was under-going renovations most of the year.
Sales revenues accounted for 64% of operational funding for Good Cheer Thrift Store. Remember, when you shop at Good Cheer Thrift Stores, you help create a hunger-free community!
Serving South Whidbey for 50 Years!
Thrift Store Sales Up 3.6%
Good Cheer’s new ‘Milk Fund’ enlists the aid of local businesses to sponsor a month’s cost of providing a 1/2 gallon of 2% milk to each fam-ily using the Food Bank. Shown here is staff of Coldwell Banker/Tara Properties.
The number of drop-off donations for 2011 was 14,843, up from 11,897 item drop-offs in 2010, even though there are additional agencies soliciting item donations on the South end of the Island. The extended evening donation hours at the Bayview site have proven to be very conve-nient for our community and will continue. It was also decided to once again receive item donations at the Thrift Stores.
2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011
Ula Lewis, our volunteer creative buying coordinator, continues to collect coupons and teach couponing classes.
Though individual client numbers dropped, the number of families using the Food Bank has increased. The Food Bank served 3,330 people last year, with an average of 842families helped per month. 928 Children2,001 Adults 381 Seniors (55+)(Above numbers include 146 homeless individuals.)
Average # of Families Helped Per Month
-
2,000
4,000
6,000
8,000
10,000
12,000
14,000
16,000
2009 2010 2011
842 Families
$-
$25,000
$50,000
$75,000
$100,000
$125,000
$150,000
$175,000
$200,000
$225,000
$250,000
$275,000
$300,000
0
5,000
10,000
15,000
20,000
25,000
30,000
35,000
0
50,000
100,000
150,000
200,000
250,000
300,000
350,000
Near-Record Monetary Donations
In-Kind Food Donations JumpFood donations jumped 32,172 lbs. above the previous year’s total to 342,153 lbs., and accounted for nearly half of the 778,913 lbs. of food distributed in 2011.
These food donations add variety to food items that Good Cheer purchases in bulk.
In 2011, a business supported “Milk Fund” was begun to help ensure that clients have access to this Vitamin D packed item.
More than 300 people attended the 2011 Harvest Party & MusicFest which featured guest speaker Graham Kerr (TV’s ‘Galloping Gourmet’ who called Good Cheer a ‘city upon a hill.”
Volunteer Hours Remain HighVolunteer hours dipped in 2011, but just slightly, and were still the second highest on record.
If paid, (using Northwest Harvest’s nonprofit formula of $20.85 an hour), this equates to $638,218 –– the equivalent of nearly 20 FTEs!
Not a volunteer yet? Come join us!
Volunteer Hours Over the Past 10 Years
30,610 hours
Ten-Year Growth in Pounds of Donated Food
342,153 pounds
2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011
Ten-Year Growth in Community Food Bank Monetary Donations
$287,419
2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011
This year’s garden shed raffle ticket sales exceeded $6,100.
2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011
Monetary donations to the Food Bank continued at a high level, though not quite the record of the previous year. This is remarkable given the sluggish economy in 2011, and the fact that there was a push for completing the capital campaign.
We are grateful for your continued support to meet ongoing needs.
Not including capital campaign or Whidbey Island Nourishes donations, or fund-raisers.
Several groups, such as these ‘Fishinistas’ from Trinity Church caught and donated salmon to the Food Bank.
Good Cheer Executive Director
Good Cheer’s Gleeful Gleaners picked and delivered more than 2,000 pounds of apples, pears, plums and other fruit in 2011.
Good Cheer Capital Campaign Successfully Ends; Langley Renovations Are Completed
Going up? One of the final touches of Good Cheer’s capital campaign was the installation of an elevator -- a 20-year-old wish come true.
Good Cheer’s beautiful new cookbook was produced in 2011 for a fundraiser during our 50th anniversary year.
2011 saw several staff changes including the retirement of staff member David Phelps who worked at Good Cheer for 16 years.
Time to celebrate as Good Cheer’s capital campaign drew to a success-ful close with a community challenge sponsored by Whidbey Island Bank in June. An additional 1,140 square feet of retail space was added to Good Cheer’s Langley Thrift Store as was an elevator, new furnace, an integrated smoke detector and fire sprinkler system for the whole building, a fire walled stairway and exterior exit, new electrical wiring, better insulation for the roof and walls (which should save on utility costs), plus a new display window.
into the compost bin. So we launched a new program “Pot before Compost” where wonderful meals are prepared and served to clients while they shop and to volunteers while they work. Look out Costco – we also do cooking demonstrations while our clients shop at the Food Bank.
Volunteer Chuck Flannery-Jones (on the front page), shows clients how to make fabulous dishes from items harvested from our on-site garden. Clients are provided a tasty sample along with a recipe card so they can then make it at home with what they selected that day from the Food Bank.
Our onsite garden yielded 5,200 lbs. of fresh, healthy vegetables in 2011. Several innovative partnership programs were also begun. (See our garden blog at www.goodcheergar-den.wordpress.com for more infor-mation.)
Good Cheer is especially proud of two promotional endeavors that took place in 2011.
A Good Cheer video was produced along with videos of six other South Whidbey nonprofits that were fea-tured at a national conference about
what makes a thriving community, with an emphasis on feeding people and cultivating community.
The video was gifted to Good Cheer by Whidbey Institute and we were so pleased with its quality and professionalism we contracted with the producers to expand it to include footage focusing on our thrift stores. You can view the video on both our website and blog.
In getting ready for our 50th an-niversary we produced a cookbook “Through the Years…Then and Now.”
It is full of recipes from local South Whidbey families of both yesterday and today. It is beautifully illustrated and will be used to kick off our fund-raising efforts in 2012.
Good things keep happening at Good Cheer. Help us celebrate our 50th birthday and be a part of our next 50!
