Feeding Charlotte is a food rescue hunger relief organization that partners with professional kitchens around Mecklenburg county to rescue their surplus, freshly prepared meals. We have a dedicated team of volunteers pick that food up and deliver it to small nonprofit food distribution partners all over Charlotte. The majority of our meal recipient partners are traditional "soup kitchens", transitional housing for people experiencing homelessness, afterschool or summer camp programs in underserved communities, underfunded senior living facilities, refugee housing communities and medical nonprofit rehabilitation centers for homeless individuals.

As an organization, 2024 promises to be a big year for us filled with excitement, changes and growth. Some of the most important parts of our growth revolve around marketing and building brand recognition with a desired end outcome of making a bigger, more long term impact in the community. In the first quarter of 2024, we'll be building a community proposal for the next stage of our organization; a full service, mostly volunteer staffed cafeteria, where those in need can come in and get a free hot meal, all while experiencing the same dignity of a full service, for profit restaurant.

In order for us to realize that vision, there are many areas of focus that will revolve around fundraising and marketing. Here are the areas where this grant would be a game changer for us and really move the needle for our mission and vision:

Direct Mail: As a small organization, we have never done a direct mail campaign but we have written into our marketing strategy to do one in 2024. This is an area where we would really love some guidance and expertise.

Promotional Materials Printing: We currently have designs for outreach materials but we are printing them as needed and the expense is huge. This grant would allow us to print the materials we need to market and grow our food donor program and, subsequently, grow our impact in the community.

Roll Up Banners for events: We have a need for roll up banners that we can take to events.

Outreach Packets: We are working on creating outreach folder packets with documents for food donor outreach and community of faith outreach. We've made up a small amount of food donor outreach packets and they have been extremely helpful in presenting to new potential food donors but the expense for those packets is very high and we have a small marketing budget.

As a very small organization, it's extremely difficult to get traction. Having the tools to grow our reach would be invaluable and your grant would do that for us. Thank you for your consideration.