Our business networking event at the Oregon Food Bank last night turned out to be a great idea. There were some good business relationships built and I got to meet some lovely folks. There is definitely an advantage to getting to know people while doing something worthwhile. In our case there were groups of 4 to 6 people packing apples and pears into family sized bags.
We had over 25 people attend and you can see some of them in the picture on the right. Just love those sexy hairnets. They really do change your appearance. I hope Heather from the Curiosity Group will forgive me as I didn’t recognize her when we were both packing together!
We started the evening in the Food Bank cafe with some speed networking in tables of 5 prior to our packing work. In hindsight we should have started earlier as we didn’t have time to switch the tables around. Still we got plenty of time to get to know each other while packing. Although it did challenge my ability to count and talk at the same time! It was pretty easy doing the pears as these were only 9 to a bag but when doing the apples we had to count to 24!
At the conclusion of the evening the group (plus some other teams) had packed 25,565 lbs of fruit into 19,666 bags for distribution to families who are struggling.
It was a fun evening and we will definitely do it again. You can get more information about volunteer opportunities at the food bank here.
Note that the food bank also serves Clark County in Washington.
My thanks to partner in crime, Missy Gerber of Organizers NW for helping organize this event. If you or your business needs some professional organizing, definitely call Missy. She is amazing.