Keywords

grand gleaners, wicked problems, grand rapids, funding

Disciplines

Agricultural Education | Agriculture

Abstract

The Heartside Gleaning Initiative (HGI) is a Grand Rapids based non-profit organization that collects unsold produce from the city’s two farmers markets and distributes it to the low-income residents of the Heartside Neighborhood. Through their efforts they increase access to healthy and local foods as well as combat food waste in the Heartside Community. Seeing the value of this work, we, an interdisciplinary team of Grand Valley State University students, sought to further the mission of the HGI by focusing predominantly on two vital aspects of any non-profit business: promoting and funding. In the winter semester of 2015 we established three courses of action. Our first course of action was to create a crowdfunding “how-to” guide for the HGI. By illustrating how to proficiently utilize crowdfunding platforms this “how-to” guide will also aid other nonprofits. Our second course of action was to develop a storyboard intended to be used in the creation of a short promotional video for the HGI. Finally, we contacted local film professionals to aid HGI in completing a promotional video during its 2015 gleaning season. It is our hope that these efforts will increase the exposure for the Heartside Gleaning Initiative and provide them with the tools to efficiently utilize this exposure.

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