Brenda Camp, Community Outreach Director for Weaver Street Market.

In January 2015, Weaver Street Market partnered with local food relief organizations including PORCH, TABLE, the Interfaith Council (IFC) and Orange Congregations in Mission (OCIM) to form the Community Food Partnership. The partnership jump-started a series of successful campaigns to provide healthy and nutritious food to people in need in the local community.

“We had no idea how responsive our shoppers would be to our call for donations,” said Brenda Camp, the community outreach director for Weaver Street Market. “Our shoppers donated $84,000 in three two-week campaigns in 2015.”

Weaver Street Market decided to reach out to customers and owners to donate healthy food such as fruits, vegetables, and bread – as well as natural and organic packaged foods – to these food relief organizations. Weaver Street Market also started the “Fill Me Up Backpacks” campaign for TABLE, the “Bags of Produce” campaign for PORCH and the “Bags of Apples” campaign for IFC’s and OCIM’s food pantries.
“Many [of our shoppers] told us that it’s easy to forget about those in need and that they appreciated having a way to donate fresh foods,” said Camp.

Over the 2016 holiday season, Weaver Street Market started their latest campaign called “Round Up!” to help the ICF and the OCIM food pantries. “Round Up!” raised money by asking all Weaver Street Market shoppers if they would like to round the total of their purchases up to the next whole dollar. The extra cents that were donated at the register by shoppers were collected and donated to the food pantries.

“While IFC was already doing this to some degree, WSM’s fundraising initiative allows us to bring in at least double the fresh produce,” Said Kristin Lavergne, the community services director at the IFC. “This means that our food pantry members have more choices and more items they can take home with them.”

The IFC is an organization that helps families and individuals in need providing food, shelter, direct services and information. The campaign raised nearly $20,000 for the IFC to purchase fresh produce for their food pantry.

“We are so grateful to WSM and their customers for this opportunity to partner in feeding those in need,” said Lavergne.

The “Round Up!” campaign proved a successful way to make a big impact on families in need by making small individual donations. Shoppers of Weaver Street Market said “yes” to rounding up their purchases 81,921 times and in just 35 days donated $43,355 to the IFC and OCIM food pantries.
In just the last two years, Camp and her Weaver Street community team have raised $215,579 for their community food partners and have no intention of stopping any time soon as they prepare for their next food campaign for PORCH in March.

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