3Community ENGAGEMENT DAY

Miles for Meals 5kMiles for Meals 5k

June 29th, 2013June 29th, 2013

Goldsboro, NCGoldsboro, NC

POL’s: Corps Members Lindsey Mancari & Matt PaynePOL’s: Corps Members Lindsey Mancari & Matt Payne

elta 3 wanted to “take it to the next level” with their POL event while serving in

Goldsboro, North Carolina. After speaking with the Southern Region Campus, their Ddesire to create an event that was entirely organized and coordinated on their own was

encouraged. So the brainstorm began. Although initially wanting to create a community

recycling event, after speaking with their sponsor and spending time with the community they

realized a more immediate need was food insecurity. Poverty in Goldsboro hovers above 14%,

nearly 5% above the national average. The fact is that many families in this community rely on

basic needs services like food pantries. Corps member Lindsey Mancari stepped in to help

Corps Member Matthew Payne with Delta 3’s POL event and had the idea to engage the

community in a unique way by organizing a 5k run. The idea went that runners and walkers

could come out to a local park on a Saturday morning and bring non-perishable food donations

and enjoy some time getting to know others in their community through a 5k/1mile fun run.

With two weeks before the only practical date, the race to plan began.

The The ideaideaThe The ideaidea

major community support!

tshirts donated by parks & rec

event fee waived for location

posters, flyers, banner donated

promoted event in local paper

Starbucks is essentialfor a successful event.

talked about event on local

spreading the word about

americorps throughout

goldsboro!

morning radio station

by local business accucopy.

highlightsplanning

OUR ARTICLE IN THE: OUR ARTICLE IN THE:

The The PLANPLANThe The PLANPLAN

11001 Find a sponsoring food pantry

2 Find location

3 Make flyer and list of needs

4 Find sponsors

5 Establish Online Registration

6 Publicity, publicity, publicity!

S T E P S T O

SUCCESS

7 Map course

8 Day of logistics

9 Drop off donations

10 Celebration & thank you’s

Advertising at Starbucks Promoting on local radio Hanging up our bannerSearching for Sponsors

11X

17 P

OS

TE

R

do

na

te

d b

y:

here IS WHAT WE NEEDdear DONOR,

Bathrooms T-Shirts

MEALSMEALS

MILESMILESF R

delta 3delta 3

YOUR YOUR LOGO LOGO HEREHERE

or5k run 1 mile walk

June 2Saturday Saturday

99

th

am

herestoney creek park

Banner 3x5 Flyers 11x17

miles miles mealsmeals

BRINGcansand other non-perishablesand other non-perishables

for admissionfor admission

dress in

USAgear

for for

Register tinyurl.comonline at: /n2mx2b4

YOUR YOUR

YOUR YOUR

LOGO LOGO

LOGO LOGO

HEREHERE

HEREHERE

America Decor

$99 $199qnty: 30

$59 $49

$39

Thank YouThank YouEmail DELTA3UNIT@GMAIL.COM orcall 951-219-9028 if you’re interestedin becoming a sponsor.

NO MONEY CHANGED HANDS WHILE ORGANIZING THIS EVENT

Planning Tip! SINCE AMERICORPS MEMBERS CANNOT TAKE CASH DONATIONS, WE SUGGEST YOU MAKE A SHEET LIKE THIS TO SHOW POTENTIAL DONORS WHAT YOU NEED. tHIS WAY THEY CAN ORDER IT FOR YOU!

Tee ShirtsTee Shirts

Andrea, devel

opment coordinat

or

at habitat and her

dog leonard!

linda, family service & finance

coordinator at habitat, and

her daughter Cassidy!

fter strengthening our relationship withthe local Parks & Recreation, they offered to Adonate t-shirts for our event. We developed

fellowship with the Parks staff after helping them lead a summer camp and joining a Kickball league they were hosting.

Planning Tip!

if you are looking to get

t-shirts donated for your

event, it helps to have

your design completed

before you secure a

sponsor. this way, they can

visualize what they are

donating and production

can begin right away!

(usually it takes about 2 weeks to

get t-shirts ordered)

Delta 3 used the free website Raceit.com to provide online registration for their runners and walkers. This proved to be useful as a way to gauge how many participants to expect, a pathway to communicate to them and a way to establish a commitment to participate.

Delta 3 used social media such as Facebook events as a way to get the word out.

Online Registration

Social Media

Planning Tip! most businesses like to

see something in writing

about your event and why

you want them to donate.

have a letter like this

completed early on in the

planning stages. make

sure to make it look official!

elta 3 spent a great deal of time the day before the race marking it out with ground

spraypaint (drawing arrows and americana). As night began to fall on the eve of the Devent, severve thunderstorms rolled into Goldsboro. Within hours, all markings were

washed away and due to the low lying nature of the park, the course was badly flooded. Late

into the evening, Corps members Payne and Mancari determined a plan B course. They

mapped out a 1.55 mile stretch of sidewalk near the park and revised plans for the race. The

morning of the race, all of Delta 3 woke up early to map out the new course and set up for the

event. As runners began to show up, rain struck again. At one point, runners ran for cover

underneath the easy up to wait for the rain to pass. However, not all hope was lost...

PLAN ON A CHANGE OF PLANSPLAN ON A CHANGE OF PLANS

-Excerpt from AmeriCorps NCCC Pledge

In the face of adversity, I will persevere. In the face of adversity, I will persevere.

and our runners were ready.

Mom & Son RunningMom & Son Running

Our WinnerOur Winner

Our SponsorOur Sponsor

See footage from our event on

Search: Goldsboro 5k AmeriCorps or visit http://tinyurl.com/M7QE2AV

CAPPING team involvement

Shirt Raffledo

na

tion

dro

p-o

ff

Corps member John Daniel speaks with community member about NCCC.

Corps member John Daniel speaks with community member about NCCC.

Cm’s A’Kim Frett & Debra Ostranderrunning the water station.

Cm’s A’Kim Frett & Debra Ostranderrunning the water station.

Community member dropsoff food donations.

Community member dropsoff food donations. These lucky two won tshirts

in our raffle. These lucky two won tshirts

in our raffle.

Masterminds

Cm’s Matt Payne & Lindsey Mancarilearned how challenging and rewarding

it is to co-organize an event.

Cm’s Matt Payne & Lindsey Mancarilearned how challenging and rewarding

it is to co-organize an event.

THE

Planning Tip! Taking great photos the day of your event is really important! in our case, we

wanted to share our photos with everyone who came so we handed out business cards with

directions on how to find our facebook!

Corps member Nicole Costello cleansup flags after the race.

Corps member Nicole Costello cleansup flags after the race.

EBIeven better if’seven better if’s ‘S

EvaluationEvaluation

Extremely SupportiveExtremely Supportive

On a scale of 1-10 (ten being highest) rate the overall success of your Community Service project.On a scale of 1-10 (ten being highest) rate the overall success of your Community Service project.

What were some of the highlights of both the service project day and the pre-project planning?What were some of the highlights of both the service project day and the pre-project planning?

What could have made the event better? What could have made the event better?

How supportive was the surrounding community in promoting and participating in your Community Service Project?How supportive was the surrounding community in promoting and participating in your Community Service Project?

Okay, maybe 9.5 because we are obviously not perfect.

Given the time constraints on planning (only 2 weeks) we are incredibly proud to have pull our event off so successfully. Whilenot everything went “according to plan”, we were preparedand still managed to keep everything going smooth.

Great deal of community support throughout our planning

Getting T-Shirts, Banner and Flyers donated

Seeing our event advertised in the Sunday Paper

Being interviewed on a morning radio show about our event.

When 23 runners showed up the day of

Seeing the runners begin the race, Lindsey said “is this actually happening right now?”

Getting tons of food (over 200 canned food items + 40 cases of water) and dropping

them off at the Salvation Army.

Being able to bring so much community exposure to AmeriCorps NCCC.

When our Sponsor joined the runners.

At nearly every turn, we had a great deal of support from the community and our sponsors

at Habitat. Andrea Friele, Development Coordinator at Habitat for Humanity of Goldsboro,

mentored us the entire way and gave us countless insights to successful event planning.

Even more, she believed in our ability and gave us constant encouragment.

Shauna McBrayer, Volunteer Coordinator at Habitat, was an incredibly valuable resource to

us, offering advice and showing us how you go about getting what you need.

Better communication and sharing of responsibilities

between event organizers Payne & Mancari.

Better location, less prone to flooding

More time to plan, obviously!

More team involvement during the planning stages

Celebration Dinner

with our Sponsors.

200648

IFIAT BN LA EU S Q

food items

bottles of water

OUR THANK YOU CARDS

Hand crafted by Lindsey.

espite our challenges- exhaustion, hurt feelings, disagreements, etc.- we kept moving

forward. That is one of the biggest lessons we will take with us, when things get tough Dand there’s little to be hopeful about, keep going. Things will go wrong. You will get

tired. But what matters is that you keep fighting to stay positive and engaged. This project has

surrounded us with some pretty amazing people. Through their mentorship we have learned

the importance of building genuine relationships and the power of service. Our Miles for

Meals 5k has been nothing short of an incredible learning experience. After completing this

feat, we feel like we have accomplished our goal to raise the bar and have the confidence to

aim even higher the next time around.

T A K E A W A Y T A K E A W A Y T H ET H E

Facebook.com/DELTA3NCCC