Earlier this month, Marcus Tanner and Mark McGilvery of the Lowcountry Food Bank visited the Walmart and Publix stores in Beaufort and Lady’s Island. Feeding America maintains the relationships with national accounts, and the Lowcountry Food Bank is responsible for regional relations. Marcus also visited Walmart and Publix stores in Hardeeville, and Publix stores at Buckwalter Place, Buck Island, and the north end of Hilton Head Island.
Their mission? To thank the employees, from managers to stock clerks, for their hard work, to find out how we can reduce wait time at the Walmarts, and what we can do to encourage more food donations.
Key learnings and next steps include:
- Both Walmart and Publix requested that we establish a consistent arrival time window, so that the receivers can focus on having the food available and scanned out at the same time each day.
- All of the stores would like a better understanding of where their food goes, and how it impacts the lives of the people receiving it. We’ll work on a solution to provide this in the coming weeks.
- By and large, the stores are still struggling to maintain enough staffing.
As one store manager said, “We view our relationship with Second Helpings as a partnership. The more you communicate about food rescue impacts and changes, the more motivated and able to help our store and our employees will be.” These are important partnerships with tremendous impact on our agencies and the lives of those we collectively serve.
