November 2020

• 37 households served on Tuesday, November 10
• 5 households served on Wednesday, November 11
• 28 households served on Thursday, November 12
• 55 households served on Tuesday, November 17
• 40 households served on Thursday, November 19

Click here to be added to First Community prayer chain.

We have new shifts available! Until Thanksgiving, we will still staff volunteers for extended hours as our clients adjust to the new hours. Tuesday and Thursday shifts will be split into two parts 8:30 am-11 am and 11 am-1:30 pm. After Thanksgiving, we will shorten those shifts!

Remember to dress appropriately for outdoor work. Sign up online if you can volunteer this week.

We have adjusted stocking shifts to spread out the work over several smaller shifts to accommodate safety needs. We are asking all volunteers to review our COVID-19 Policy. Please do not come in if you are experiencing any symptoms of illness, and please give us as much notice as possible. You can delete your name from Sign Up Genius or email hearttoheart@FCchurch.com to let us know.

Rev. Kate Shaner will host an All-Volunteer Meeting via Zoom on December 15 at 7 pm. Everyone is encouraged to attend. Kate will update us on the changes happening at Heart to Heart and share our vision for the future. We will review volunteer expectations and responsibilities. Most importantly, many of us will get to put faces with names just by being together.

Mark your calendars for Tuesday, December 15 at 7 pm to join us live online. The meeting invitation is linked below, and we will continue to share on the blog and on social media until then.

We will be hosting a LIVE nativity on December 19 in the parking lot of First Community South! We are extending an exclusive invitation to the First Community staff and our Heart to Heart volunteers and their families to drive through the nativity from 1pm to 2pm. The nativity will remain open to everyone until 4pm. All visitors are asked to bring a donation of pet food for admission!

This Sunday, November 22, please join us online for virtual worship at FCchurch.com. After worship, we will hold a drive-through collection of donations from 12 to 1 pm in the parking lot of First Community South.  We will be set up to sell clearance Heart to Heart merchandise in the tents as well!

• We can no longer accept donations of used plastic grocery bags. Please do not bring them to the annex for donation.
• Do you know an organization that could regularly supply us with a donation of goods distribution? Perhaps your friend manages a pet store and would like to donate dog food. We would love to make a connection! We are especially interested in pet food, toilet paper, and diapers. Please contact us to make arrangements.
• If you would like to volunteer for Heart to Heart, but remain at home due to the pandemic, please contact us. We have a few jobs that could be done from the safety and comfort of your home, on the phone.
• Any handy people willing to help build a solid, smooth surface for the floor of the church van, please contact us.
• In response to COVID-19 recommendations, all van drivers will be required to follow cleaning and disinfecting routines going forward. These instructions will be posted inside the van.

Click here to read this week’s email from Rev. Kate Shaner.

• November 3, Tuesday: 24
• November 4, Wednesday: 34
• November 5, Thursday: 23

We have new shifts available! Until Thanksgiving, we will still staff volunteers for extended hours as our clients adjust to the new hours. Tuesday and Thursday shifts will be split into two parts 8:30 am-11:00 am and 11:00 am-1:30 pm. After Thanksgiving, we will shorten those shifts! Remember to dress appropriately for outdoor work. Sign up online if you can volunteer this week.

Click here to be added to First Community prayer chain.

The Pop Up Pantry continues to serve clients by taking needed food directly to clients and their families in their local communities.  During October, food was distributed every Wednesday at the following agency sites:

• October 7:   Commons at Livingston-34 clients
• October 14:  Southpoint Apartments-37 clients
• October 21:  Commons at Grant-40 clients
• October 28:  Commons at Livingston-40 clients

Our number of clients and families served continued to increase in October:

•  October      151
•  September 144
•  August        123
•  July              98

Our Pop Up Pantry team continues to do an outstanding job of facilitating a safe working environment by bagging food outside, limiting our number of volunteers, maintaining physical distancing, masking, and hand hygiene.  We are fortunate to have the use of one of the church vans and a volunteer driver so that we can safely deliver our food to the designated site after bagging is completed. We’re thankful for the continued assistance of our Share and Learn Garden and for the support of H2H in providing fresh produce in addition to the dry food items served to our Pop Up Pantry clients. We’re also grateful to the Monday Meals for the Homeless team for sharing bread and dessert items for our clients.

With winter upon us and the rapid growth of COVID-19 infections, the food insecurity needs of families are continuing to increase along with health, safety, and economic concerns.  The Pop Up Pantry team is working to expand our outreach initiative to additional agencies within the Columbus community.  We continue to be blessed by the opportunity to serve others as God calls us to do.

We will be hosting a LIVE nativity on December 19 in the parking lot of First Community South! We are extending an exclusive invitation to the First Community staff and our Heart to Heart volunteers and their families to drive through the nativity from 2pm to 3pm. The nativity will remain open to everyone until 5pm. We will provide more information as it becomes available.

• We can no longer accept donations of used plastic grocery bags. Please do not bring them to the annex for donation.
• If you would like to volunteer for Heart to Heart, but remain at home due to the pandemic, please contact us. We have a few jobs that could be done from the safety and comfort of your home, on the phone.
• If you’re interested in helping us with our semi-regular monthly pickup from Penzey’s Spices, please contact us. We will put you in touch with their representative to make arrangements.
• Do you know an organization that could regularly supply us with a donation of goods distribution? Perhaps your friend manages a pet store and would like to donate dog food. We would love to make a connection! We are especially interested in pet food, toilet paper, and diapers. Please contact us to make arrangements.
• We are going to start logging incoming Direct Retail Pickups online. If you’re volunteering during the delivery of a donation from one of our retail partners, you may be asked to do record this. Help will be available on-site, and there will be printed instructions available. However, if you’re interested in learning how to use the program, please click through the slideshow below.

As part of our agreement with Mid-Ohio Food Collective, we must maintain certain standards. One of these is Civil Rights training for all of our volunteers. All volunteers will be required to complete this online training. There are three steps to this process.

1. Take the free online training course available here.
2. Complete the quiz at the end of the slideshow.
3. Use this online form to let us at Heart to Heart know you have completed your training, so we can verify with Mid-Ohio Food Collective. Please note you are not required to login as a First Community member to complete this step.

We are trying to streamline our communications at Heart to Heart. We want to make sure you’re getting all the information you want, and only the information you want. In order to better serve this goal, we have created and begun to use new email distribution lists. Please click below to sign up for the appropriate email list(s).

Dear Heart to Heart Volunteers,

We are grateful for your willingness to share your time at the Heart to Heart Food Pantry during this pandemic. The work we do is very important to the community and keeping it operational and safe are our utmost priorities at this time.

We want to remind you of the following:

Please do NOT come to volunteer at Heart to Heart if you have:

• symptoms of illness
• a fever or a cough
• been in contact with someone who has been ill or has a fever or cough
• have been in contact with someone who has tested positive COVID-19 in the last 30 days.

BEFORE you enter the church property (while you are still in your car), please do the following:

• Put on your face mask.
• Use hand sanitizer.

When on church property:

• Follow check-in procedures and take your temperature.
• Keep face mask on at all times.
• Observe social distancing.

If, at any time, you (or someone in your household) test positive for COVID-19, you must notify us immediately, as there are protocols and safety measures to complete if a person testing positive was on the property.

Thank you for all the work you do.

• October 27, Tuesday: 34
• October 28, Wednesday: 40
• October 29, Thursday: 34

We have new shifts available!

Until Thanksgiving, we will still staff volunteers for extended hours as our clients adjust to the new hours. Tuesday and Thursday shifts will be split into two parts 8:30 am-11:00 am and 11:00 am-1:30 pm. After Thanksgiving, we will shorten those shifts! Remember to dress appropriately for outdoor work. Sign up online if you can volunteer this week.

Volunteers and clients alike celebrated Halloween this week. Dressed in costume, volunteers included a bag of treats (no tricks!) for each client that visited.

As part of our agreement with Mid-Ohio Food Collective, we must maintain certain standards. One of these is Civil Rights training for all of our volunteers. All volunteers will be required to complete this online training. There are three steps to this process.

1. Take the free online training course available here.
2. Complete the quiz at the end of the slideshow.
3. Use this online form to let us at Heart to Heart know you have completed your training, so we can verify with Mid-Ohio Food Collective. Please note you are not required to login as a First Community member to complete this step.

Are you a volunteer interested in learning how to use PantryTrak from a representative at Mid-Ohio Food Collective?  Sign up to take the class online Wednesday, November 4th, 4:00 pm -5:30 pm.

Are you checking in daily when you arrive to volunteer? Everyone who comes to Heart to Heart to volunteer should be checking in at the volunteer stand in the hallway. You will need to take your temperature and log it with your name and contact information in the book provided. This requirement helps keep everyone safe.

If you volunteer to pick up donations and drop them off at Heart to Heart at any time during the week, you should have received an email from Amy Caskie on Friday. If you did not receive an email with information about an access code, please contact Amy immediately via email.

Volunteers receiving donations in the pantry will soon receive training on logging incoming donations online! This process will help us save time and paper by skipping the written record and manual logging altogether. You may have noticed we have new iPads at Heart to Heart, one dedicated entirely to this. If you’re interested in learning about it this week, touch base with Kate! A more formal training slideshow will be available soon.

Your social media presence can help Heart to Heart be more successful!

Do you follow us on Facebook and Instagram? If so, when you see a post that might apply to your friends or family, click to share it with your followers. Whether it’s an article on hunger or a plea for volunteers, your share means we reach more people with the information we are trying to share. You can encourage other folks to follow and share, as well!

Social media is usually the most efficient way for us to communicate because one post can reach such a large audience in a short time.

Facebook                                                  Instagram

Social media not your jam? Tell us how can we keep in touch!

We are trying to streamline our communications at Heart to Heart. We want to make sure you’re getting all the information you want, and only the information you want. In order to better serve this goal, we will be creating new email distributions lists and will implement their use beginning October 10. Please click below to sign up for the appropriate email list(s).