San Diego Lunch Project for Nourish America: Food Day 2011

Nourish America
Food Day 2011: Nourish San Diego Lunch Project

Created By: Jessica Thornton
October 25, 2011

Jessica Thornton • email: jessica.lee.thornton@gmail.com• Twitter @mymessyjesse
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Table of Contents

Concept! 2

Overview
2

Nourish America
2

Food Day 2011
4

Nourish San Diego Lunch Project
4

Nourish SD Lunch Project: P1! 5

Key Actions
5

Materials For Awareness
5

Materials for Lunches
6

Nourish SD Lunch Project: P2! 8

SUMMARY
8

A Variety of Responses
8

Food Stamps: Possible Research Project/Case Study
8

Conclusion
10

Contact Information! 12

Jessica Thornton
12

1

Concept
The evolution of the Nourish San Diego Lunch Project

OVERVIEW

The Nourish San Diego Lunch project mission is to deliver hundreds of nutritious and cost-
sensitive lunches to the general public in celebration of National Food Day and to help raise
awareness about hunger and food insecurity in the United States. All of the content and resulting
conversations are directed towards Nourish America and their fundraising campaign.

Nourish America

Nourish America is a non-profit located in Ojai, California and working with publics all through-
out the country. I started working with them via “micro”-volunteering on http://sparked.com.
After getting emotionally invested in the idea, I decided that my do-good actions should benefit
this amazing organization. I am in no way affiliated with Nourish America other than through a
casual, verbal relationship. All of my support is 100% voluntary of my own free will.

Their purpose, as stated on http://nourishamerica.com

“Nourish America is committed to provide the daily essential nutrition that impoverished
American children, families, pregnant moms, and seniors and others in need require to live
productive, successful lives.

We do this by providing them nutrient rich foods and products such as vitamin supplements
and nourishing foods (including naturals and organics). Our distribution network includes
thousands of volunteers and staff who work at hundreds of Nourish America partner organi-
zations and agencies serving those in need across all 50 states.

Nourish America partners include public schools, churches, Head Start, Healthy Start and
WIC programs, homeless and battered women shelters, public health departments, medical
clinics, the American Red Cross, Volunteers of America, Salvation Army, Boys and Girls’

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Clubs, Feed the Children, Native American programs, YMCA and YWCA, City Park and
Recreation Departments, hospital outreach programs, National Guard units, area Councils
on Aging, public health departments, medical and nursing school community outreach pro-
grams, and many other community and faith-based organizations.”

Nourish America Current Fundraising Campaign (as of October 2011)
$10 Feeds ONE HUNDRED - $100K Feeds ONE MILLION

Got FOOD?

Sixteen MILLION Families are going hungry.

That’s a big problem.

Living in hunger undermines their health, well-being and their ability to better their lives.

Helping is EASY.

Give to Nourish America today. Only $1 Feeds TEN.

$10 Feeds ONE HUNDRED!

For the price of a movie ticket, you can feed 100 Americans in need. Please give.

We won’t stop until we reach $100K and give away a million servings!

Donate and enlist 10 friends to follow…

All donations provide foods high in nutrition like protein bars, meal replacement drinks, multivi-
tamins as well as natural and organic foods for children, seniors, veterans and families in need,
right here in America.

Feed. Nourish. Empower.

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Food Day 2011

The first annual Food Day took place on October 24th, 2011 throughout the United States. From
the official website http://foodday.org I obtained this information:

The day is sponsored by the Center for Science in the Public Interest, the nonprofit watchdog
group that has led successful fights for food labeling, better nutrition, and safer food since
1971. Like CSPI, Food Day will be people-powered and does not accept funding from govern-
ment or corporations—though restaurants, supermarkets, and others are certainly encour-
aged to observe Food Day in their own ways.

Different groups and organizations are hosting events throughout several cities in the country to
recognize Food Day and the issues it intends to address about food safety, hunger, regulations
on mass production of food, and much more.

I chose this day to execute the awareness campaign on hunger in order to leverage the “buzz”
already going on surrounding promotion of health through food. There will be several key pub-
lics throughout the city already conscious and aware of Food on this day, and my marketing strat-
egy is to bring awareness to hunger in America, Nourish America, the role that they play and so-
lutions they provide, and how to donate to their current fundraising campaign.

Nourish San Diego Lunch Project

I thought that I would spend a day providing food to the general public and raising awareness of
hunger and Nourish America’s fundraising efforts. My original plan was to deliver lunches to
supporters of food day as well as to protesters in San Diego participating in this branch of “Oc-
cupy Wall Street.” The vision and goal are to get as much of the food donated if possible.

I am not making a concentrated effort on collecting donations for the Nourish America project
while in the field, rather we will provide materials that direct users to an online platform to do-
nate to their current campaign.

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Nourish SD Lunch Project: P1
Preparation for October 24th (in less than a week’s time)

KEY ACTIONS

This section will outline the Key Elements of this project, the reasoning and logic behind them,
and the necessary actions to take to implement these elements

Materials For Awareness

My idea was to ensure that every lunch that is distributed includes messaging that

• raises awareness of hunger as a problem in America,

• Introduces Nourish America as a Solution,

• and includes a call to action that drives recipients to connect online.

KEY STRATEGY: Track impact through immediate results of online community building (Twit-
ter, Facebook) and residual increased sphere as a result of content created from this project.

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Awareness Card included in Lunches:
Nourish SD- brought to you by Nourish America

In 2010, 48.8 million Americans lived in food insecure
households- this is more than 14% of American house-
holds…. In California, 15.9% of households are food inse-
cure

Nourish America Will not stop until they raise funds
to feed 1 million Americans in need!

$10 feeds 100… and just $1 feeds 10!

Connect with us and PLEASE donate to Nourish America
http://facebook.com/nourishamerica
@nourishamerica

Who am I? Jessica Thornton. Social Good Pioneer @my-
messyjesse

Materials for Lunches

I ended up using all materials that I had in my own home to make about 30 lunches. I made Tuna
Salad and Turkey sandwiches with spinach on whole wheat bread. I spent a little of my own cash
on a fresh loaf of bread and plastic bags to put the sandwiches in. I also handed out fresh apples.

In total, I had enough supplies in house to make 30 sandwiches and distributed all of them!

If this were to be replicated with a team or group of volunteers, the combined effort would allow
for making MORE lunches, in which case volunteers should request donations from local grocery
stores

Script for Requesting Donations:
Hi I,m Jessica Thornton, I live here in San Diego. Monday is National Food Day, And Ill be go-
ing around the city delivering lunches at different food day events and raising awareness about
hunger issues and food insecurity in America. As I do this, I want to demonstrate just how simple
it is to actually feed someone.

This also ties in with the kick off of a campaign by nourish america- where they are trying to feed
a million people. They’ll do this when they raise $100,000 in increments of $10. Getting out in
front of people will raise general awareness about nourish america and this fundraising cam-
paign.

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We’re asking for donations for healthy lunches. Do you have any produce, deli meat, breads or
water that you’d like to contribute to the cause?

In return, we’ll promote your endorsement on our website, through our social media coverage
and marketing and in all the lunches to local San Diegans- This will be great exposure for you as
well!

Considerations when asking for Donations:
• Some of the grocery stores needed the Nourish America Tax ID #

• Ask for small donations of nutrient-rich foods like

• Bag of apples or oranges, Grapes, Bananas

• Sliced Deli Meat

• Whole Wheat Bread

• Produce thats close to turning- Tomatoes, Cucumbers (for veggie sandwiches)

• Beans: make a spread/paste for sandwiches

• Air popped popcorn

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Nourish SD Lunch Project: P2
Feeding Occupy San Diego on October 24th, 2011

SUMMARY

On October 24th, 2011 around 12:30 pm I went down to the Civic Center in San Diego, where the
occupy San Diego movement was taking place, with about 3o lunches and my flip camera.

My main objective today was to raise awareness about hunger in America and also gauge the cur-
rent level of awareness with regard to hunger in America among my community members here in
San Diego, CA.

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A Variety of Responses

I chose to use Occupy San Diego as my platform for Food Day because the public there is already
supposedly tuned into America’s issues and proud to be an activist, and this is of course they type
of people we are looking for to donate and get involved with Nourish America. While many were
supportive of the cause and grateful for the food, few were aware of the hunger issues facing
America.

In my many conversations with the Occupiers, spectators and volunteers I learned that based on
the general lack of awareness of food insecurity and hunger, Nourish America should focus heav-
ily on reporting on hunger data, and perhaps even gathering data on hunger and nutrition to ana-
lyze and publish.

Food Stamps: Possible Research Project/Case Study

One interviewee, Anita Simons, discussed the negative social implications of “being on food
stamps,” and suggested that people in need were too embarrassed to apply for that type of sup-
port.

Understanding this perspective is important and Nourish America can leverage this attitude in its
public relations campaign efforts. By carefully educating all publics on why proper nutrition is
critical to both mental and physical health, you are positively influencing people to recognize
access to necessary food as a human right.

Using expertise on subjects surrounding Nourish America provides your publics with value and
demonstrates authority in the space you are trying to influence. These are both very important to
building community online and offline.

Below are some GENERAL subjects you can expand and take in several different directions for
content you create online that will educate and inform your community.

• Hunger

• Food deserts

• Food insecurity

• Nutrition Education

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• The body

• Food

• Food costs

• Ideas for inexpensive recipies- school lunches

• Meal planning, grocery shopping,

• Food Stamps: educate the general public (battle down stigma)

• Food Pantries

• Mobile Food Pantries

TIP: A great way to learn more about these areas yourself is to subscribe to blogs using Google
Reader. You can find great new resources for information on these subjects by searching Twit-
ter, and by setting Google Alerts - which will send you an email any time new info appears online
with the search term for which you set the “Alert”

Conclusion

The San Diego lunch project successfully created videos which can be used for powerful messag-
ing via social channels. Additionally, it can be easily duplicated as a simple volunteer campaign.

In my initial conversations with Mary about Nourish America, we discussed the steps for her cur-
rent fundrasing campaign loosely as:

1. Identify huger and poor nutrition as a problem (awareness)

(Suggestions as outlined above)

2. Show Nourish America as a solution

This includes publicity on the actual operations of the organization including number of peo-
ple fed, funds raised, etc, as well as through providing value to your publics through educa-
tional material that shows expertise and therefore commands authority.

3. Call To Action: Donate Funds

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Least barriers to entry to accept funds and currently driving all online fundraising efforts
through http://www.razoo.com/story/Nourishamerica

I’d also consider a mobile strategy for collecting funds so that as more in-person, street level
events are scheduled fundraising is possible. This can include use of the Square App or thr
Razoo App through an iPhone or iPad.

In considering scheduling multiple lunch projects, you might also use an event scheduling tool
online to promote your efforts, such as Plancast.com

Nourish America should develop a system to track influence using the built in analytics tools with
the networks such as Faceobok Insights, Twitter analytics on Hootsuite, and YouTube video
analytics as new key messages are crafted for this fundraising campaign and others.

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Contact Information
JESSICA THORNTON

Phone: 908-268-6403

Email: jessica.lee.thornton@gmail.com

Twitter: @mymessyjesse

Facebook: http://facebook.com/jessica.lee.thornton

LinkedIn: http://linkedin.com/in/jessicathornton

YouTube: http://youtube.com/mymessyjesse (all project videos are hosted here)

Google +: http://gplus.to/jessicathornton

Blog and more: http://jessicathornton.posterous.com

A Little More about Me: I am passionate for people, technology, food and writing.

My academic and professional expertise is centered around Public Relations, Marketing, and
Journalism. Specifically, I have worked in Social Media Strategy and Training for over 2 years.

I love what I do so much that I can't stay put with just one business, product, or service.
Throughout my experience I've worked with universities, small businesses, non profits, real es-
tate professionals, individuals, and international corporations to build and strengthen relation-
ships for increased business. My ability to adapt to various client types has fueled both motivation
and success.

I am particularly passionate about social, economic and environmental sustainability and leverag-
ing technology for social good. As an idealist, I'd like to provide ALL people with the resources
THEY need to survive, including education and tools.

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San Diego Lunch Project for Nourish America: Food Day 2011

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