A Helping Hand

As part of its initiative to better serve Ohioans in need The Ohio Benefit Bank™ Mobile Express is currently studying the best ways to reach out to some of our most underserved populations, with a special focus on Ohio’s seniors, veterans, and people living with disabilities.  One of the ways we are hoping to learn more about these particular groups is through a state wide survey that, in order to promote accessibility, will be conducted through email, phone, mail, and direct participation.

We need your help to be successful! 

Do you or your organization have any contact with seniors, veterans, or people living with disabilities, especially those that are well connected to others in their own communities?    Would you be willing to help us enroll them in a study that will help you better connect to underserved populations in your area?  If so, please contact Tyler Davis at (614) 915-2038 or through email at tdavis@ohiofoodbanks.org for more information regarding this project!

Thank you Lancaster-Fairfield Community Action Agency!

Over the course of the 2012 tax season it has been our great pleasure to work on several occasions with the Lancaster-Fairfield Community Action Agency. 

In addition to offering free tax clinics, the Lancaster-Fairfield Community Action Agency provides its community with a phenomenal adult literacy and GED program, offers access to weatherization services through HWAP, maintains a food pantry and recycling center, and helps people apply for a number of other social service programs.

Tonya Dobbins, and all of the staff, have done their very best to ensure that our visits to their site were extremely successful. We appreciate all of their hard work, especially since it enabled the Mobile Express to help more than 50 individual clients file over 100 tax applications over several visits to the agency.

If you are in Fairfield County, and are interested in becoming involved with the Lancaster-Fairfield Community Action Agency, feel free to give them a call at (740) 653-4146 or complete this volunteer application  to explore the many ways you can make a difference in your community!

Pictured: The Lancaster – Fairfield Community Action Agency building in Lancaster, from the organization’s website, http://www.faircaa.org/. 

Serving Together in Cincinnati’s Northside

Churches Active In Northside (CAIN) is a one-stop-shop for individuals looking to receive assistance in Cincinnati’s Northside neighborhood.  Formally founded in 1991, CAIN is supported by thirteen church ministries who, as explained to me, joined together to maximize their impact and minimize the need for clients to visit pantries as often.  CAIN offers everything from food and household products to help with birthday gifts for children and all the while remains an active OBB site, helping to connect pantry visitors with Food Assistance to supplement their food budget in the long term. 

Image: from CAIN website, www.cainministry.org

Here are three things CAIN is doing to ensure success:

They cater their hours of operation to their clients.  At CAIN, a parent can get off work at a normal time, go home and fix dinner, and still have time to visit the pantry before it closes at 8:30 pm.They use their OBB services to propel other aspects of their organization and vice-versa.  In fact, it seems like each time someone walks out of their door you can hear a staff member or volunteer encouraging clients to tell their friends and family that they can find help at CAIN.They nurture existing partnerships and relationships.  One of the times we visited CAIN this tax season we met a volunteer who had moved from Cincinnati to West Virginia. Every time she comes back to visit, she spends some time volunteering with her friends at CAIN!

Creative Marketing

Pictured above: Organizers of the Churches Active in Northside (CAIN) tax clinic pasted signs to The Ohio Benefit Bank™ Mobile Express to direct clients to the appropriate entrance.

Marketing your Ohio Benefit Bank events doesn’t have to be expensive, it just has to work! For example, printed signs like the one shown above can work great as long as they are placed in effective locations.  

Recently, we attended a food distribution in Wooster that had a phenomenal turn-out. It turns out that the folks at the Wooster Hope Center reached out to many new clients by using Facebook and Twitter! Approximately twenty percent of the first-time attendees we spoke to said they heard about the event through social media, which really goes to show the impact social media can have when trying to reach out to new groups of people!  

What kind of marketing is most effective for you? If you have any creative ideas that work for your organization, we’d love to hear from you. Leave a comment to share them here, or email us at: dhansen@ohiofoodbanks.org.