Johnson County Friends Feeding Friends
January 27, 2022 Meeting
Location: Offices of Great Divide Fabrication, 75 N. Main St.
Attending: Sharon Miller, Sallie Wright, Kristina, PJ Rozema, Heather Haas, Becky Cotant, Jennifer Burden and Breean Waller (by phone)
Heather called the meeting to order.
Danielle and Wendy with Century 21 presented a $400 check as a donation to FFF.
Heather introduced PJ as the newest board member.
Sharon presented her coordinator’s report. 2020’s income was higher than last year, but we received lots of grants and a chunk of that came from the church as well as a CARES Act grant.
Pantries are going gang busters. We’ve estimated that 90% of the calories New West students are getting is coming from FFF. An anonymous donor from FFF paid for a Thanksgiving dinner for those students. We are seeing fewer kids per week. We did a hunger survey, and we are seeing the numbers going down (need as well?). Between us, the pantries and the child tax credit, we believe there was some hunger relieved. I think we are making an impact.
Breean has expanded our community outreach and helped with donations and volunteers. She sends reminders to our packing teams, and she’s leading all the sessions now. She has four pantries stocked. We have weekly fruit and bread for our bags. Thursday morning delivery is done by FBLA. Boy Scouts and New West are also helping to unpack the food trucks.
Boxes are at the grocery stores for grocery bag drop off. Kesee (sp?) (Kelsey M’s daughter) is picking those up and coordinating that project. Breean has also taken over the bookkeeping. She maintains the donation spreadsheet and sends thank yous.
We were told there was only enough BIB funding for 40 kids, but we got a call from the national director saying the Patricks donated the needed money.
Becky’s food report: Last month was rough, the site was down and they are revamping everything. I’m hoping February is better because it was slim pickings. They did give us $1,500 in gift cards to use in Albertsons and Ridleys.
Heather said she was really excited about the number of kids we are reaching at the higher age levels with the pantries as they were not taking home bags.
Can we order from Albertsons online? Breean will look if that is a possibility. Jenn and Sallie volunteered to pick up an order in Sheridan if needed.
Breean said the bucket she puts in the lobby at Cotant’s is usually gone by Friday. She will reach back out to the newspaper to see if there are boxes available. She said she’s called and left messages. Jennifer and Heather volunteered to reach out to the newspaper as well.
Sharon gave a report of donation history by type. See financial report.
Sharon will invite newer board members to the Google Drive.
Breean said she is giving older food to Betty Rodriguez to give her pigs. We don’t see much waste at all. Betty also sells market pigs. We might be able to work with her to process a pig. Dee McMahan has a friend to donate beef if we can find somewhere to process it and individually wrap beef sticks. Sharon will talk to Dee. Where did Jenny Gordon get hers processed that she donated? Could we find a volunteer to drive to wherever it was processed?
Public relations report: Send out another ask letter and a post on Giving Tuesday. Heather has been gathering pics of delivery teams and gives them a shout out on website and Facebook, as well as pizza gift cards.
Fundraising: We continue to write grants as they come. If anyone has a free weekend, there are a lot of grants out there – national grants? We’ve also been talking for a while now about hosting an event. We will continue to work on that.
Old business:
Welcome PJ.
Race for the Rest of Us – we’ve organized it pretty well. Heather will look into a date.
There is a nonprofit conference that the Wyoming Community Foundation puts on. It’s May 17 and 18. The board would support sending Breean if she can go. PJ made a motion to send Breean to the Wyoming Community Foundation nonprofit conference. Jennifer second. Motion carried – unanimous.
Heather has also signed up for online board training and sent the link to the rest of the board. She said they emphasized the legal duties of a nonprofit board member. We really need to be diligent of how money is being spent.
Sallie suggested an annual audit. Sharon said we have our checks and balances. Breean and Sharon handle transactions. Becky reviews everything as the treasurer. Heather said it’s the board members jobs to review the coordinator’s report. Sharon prints a list of transactions from Quickbooks and the bank and match invoices to checks. Heather said she thinks the trainings are worth it.
Heather handed out the annual review of the conflict of interest. Documents are all on the Google Drive, including our documentation retention policy.
Other business: Board member terms
Sallie motioned to retain Kristina Anders and PJ Rozema until 2022. Jennifer second. Discussion: Clean up the list of dates, we can stagger them. Let’s bring them up at the next board meeting. Motion carried – unanimous. (Note: Kristina voted for PJ; PJ voted for Kristina; both board members abstained when voting for their own term.)
We missed the General Operating Fund WyCF grant deadline, but there are more coming up. It was mentioned that the third Tuesday at the fairgrounds is food distribution. The contact is Amy Packard, she works at Cenex. PJ is giving Sharon’s number to contact her (to take food when we have enough?).
Sallie motioned to adjourn. PJ second. Motion carried – unanimous.