BFA Growth

As an executive board member of Buckeye Food Alliance, I am proud of the growth we have seen through these crazy times. During the fiscal year 2019, BFA had 576 visits, and in the fiscal year 2020 BFA had about 2,522 visits. This fiscal year, BFA is on pace to have around 6,400 visits! Seeing these numbers rise is very inspiring; especially given the circumstances that so many college students are currently going through. I am excited to be a part of this growing organization and to have helped in the growth this year. So many of our policies have changed because of the pandemic, so my role looks a little different than it would have without COVID-19. We are not allowed to have non-executive board volunteers so each of the board members has had to take a larger role in counting inventory, stocking shelves, substantial cleaning, etc. Additionally, no one is allowed to touch the food except us. This means customers have to look at a menu and tell us what they want and we go into the pantry and get it for them. This is much more time-consuming than our pre-COVID-19 policies which were simply checking each person into PantryTrak and allowing them to shop for themselves. This all has taken time away from the bigger marketing tasks I would have likely had as assistant director of marketing, but that is alright given the experiences I have been able to gain. Because we are much more social with our customers due to the new policies, I have gotten to see smiles on faces as I bring food out, and hear much more often how much BFA means to people. Additionally, I have been able to practice marketing by promoting our info session in September and helping run our social media platforms. I also am enjoyed helping read applications from future executive board members and look forward to helping with the interview process. These experiences will help me so much in the future as I have seen how much of a role personal interaction and marketing both play in optometric practices.

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