Walk & Knock newsletter

The Walk & Knocker

A quarterly newsletter for the Walk & Knock Family
 

COME TOGETHER

CELEBRATE, CELEBRATE!

Congrats to us all! It was a heck of a year, capped off by an amazing Drive & Drop effort. Dance to the music!

THE SHAPE OF THINGS TO COME

Your Board has made a few decisions after lengthy discussions about the shape of things to come. Biggest change will be… No Bags! The postcards were such a hit that we’ve decided to substitute 185,000 postcards for our venerable bags. The cost is about the same — $31,000. It’s a big change after all these years, but your Board believes the postcards are attention-getters reaching those who don’t know about W&K. They go to every residence and business address in Clark County and contain the various ways of donating.

STILL THE ONE

We still will manage hundreds of volunteers collecting donations from porches and bringing them to one of our drop sites. And we will still place “thank you/sorry we missed you” door hangers on all doors. And we will still need Area Captains to round up those hundreds of volunteers.

I JUST WANT TO CELEBRATE

A Few of our many accomplishments this past year:

• A widely praised Drive & Drop Food Drive that despite everythingnetted 134,000 pounds of food and $115,000 in donations. Awesome!
• New Treasurers – In May we welcomed Kim Darrah as our Treasurer who made many money improvements. This May we welcome Steve Staudinger, a Lion and former W&K area captain, as our new Treasurer.
• New secretary – Welcome Kandie King who replaced Kay Hust as Secretary. Kay is now our apartment and condominium coordinator.
• New Sponsorship Coordinator – Welcome Scott Miller, former Riverview Community Bank marketing VP, as our new Sponsorship Coordinator behind Justin Wood. Scott knows everybody and grills a mean steak as well
• WSUV Social Media help – Dr. Dene Grigar’s digital media class provided much-needed help creating several videos, logos and other digital products to help us get the word out on Drive & Drop. Talk about well-timed!
• Maps – New Board Member Tim Kraft, using his amazing engineering skills, made up new maps for several Area captains who responded to his offer, including all of Sector B. These maps show churches, schools, businesses and every home. I encourage all Area Captains to take advantage.
• Clubs – Kinda an administrative thing, but we finally inventoried all the service clubs in Clark County, identified their contacts and have built a list of dues-paying members. Since they are our bosses, a big step forward. We had 18 dues-paying clubs last year and hope to boost that to 20.
• Sponsors – Despite the coronavirus, we had 19 sponsors who donated $45,000 last year, including Riverview Community Bank, Bank of America, Cost Less Auto Parts and McDonald’s, Title Sponsors who each gave $5,000. Couldn’t do it without you, literally.
• Photos – Every year when we need photos for publicity, we don’t have ‘em. Enter Denny Blair and Kevin Harper. Food Bank volunteers, they stepped up on Drive Day to take 265 photos. We’re set now!

DON’T STOP THINKING ABOUT TOMORROW

As we go back to picking up bags from porches, volunteers become all-important. Our volunteer numbers have slipped the last few years from 4,000 to 3,200 in 2019. We on your Board can help with advertising, but it’s up to the Area Captains, supervised by their Sector Coordinators to round up enough volunteers to make sure we get every bag off every porch. I wince every time I hear “No one picked up my bag.”
 
To find volunteers – “organize where they’re organized!” Look to schools, churches, neighborhood associations, youth groups and businesses. My goal is to have organized groups “owning” Areas. For example, a local church or business or school taking charge of their Area each year. Wouldn’t that be nice?
 
Like a franchise operation, your Board will take care of marketing, getting you supplies and doing what we can to give you the tools for a successful drive. But it’s up to Area Captains and Sector Coordinators to recruit and organize the hundreds of volunteers that make us the Nation’s Largest Local One-Day Food Drive!

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