DNO Team Volunteers: Summer Feeding Program
This past summer, members of our DNO Produce Team came together and volunteered at the Mid-Ohio Food Collective to help prepare nutritious foods for kids in the greater Columbus region.
MOFC’s mission is to end hunger one nourishing meal at a time while co-creating communities where everyone thrives. As a company committed to ensuring ALL children have access to fresh, nutritious food, our mission aligned perfectly with what MOFC Kitchen stood for.
For DNO’s first partnership with the kitchen, our team contributed more than 800 hours over the course of six weeks! Production typically slows down during the warmer months when schools are out of session, and our hourly employees can often feel less engaged. We began looking for creative ways to more evenly share our workload and found a great opportunity with the MOFC kitchen. This volunteering partnership was the perfect way to help keep our hourly employees engaged while ensuring they receive full time hours. Our volunteers were compensated not only for their time and labor but also for mileage.
“Being a 24/7 operation, we need to make sure everyone has the opportunity to work full time, as they do during the regular school year. Rather than cut back hours over the summer and risk losing our seasoned associates, we decided to guarantee our production staff 40 hours per week and utilize those extra hours to help our partner, MOFC, and serve kids in the community,” said Alex DiNovo, President of DNO Produce. “Basically, solving two problems at once and creating a win for DNO, our Associates, MOFC, and the central Ohio community.”
Our team enjoyed being in a new environment and getting the chance to contribute to a greater cause. Most importantly, they knew that every meal they packed was going to a child in the Columbus community.
We were honored to help prep, cook, and send out nearly 80,000 meals to 36 summer food sites in 3 Central Ohio counties, and help MOFC reach their goal of providing free, healthy meals for thousands of children here in our community.
“Like MOFC, DNO provides healthy and nutritious produce to kids. In particular, DNO invests tremendous resources into teaching children about fresh fruits and vegetables,” DiNovo said. “We want to make the world a healthier and happier place, and we do this through fresh produce.”