| Abundant Harvest Annual Report 2020 |
2020 was a banner year full of many blessings at The Abundant Harvest.
The Kitchen. We began the year 2020 under construction - smashing down walls, sawing through concrete, lifting A/C units on to the roof, building walk-in coolers, burying a grease trap, and mounting a vent hood - as we remodeled an 8,000 SF warehouse at Rayford and I-45. On March 22, we opened The Abundant Harvest Kitchen, fulfilling a vision years in the making and equipping our ministry with a kitchen, cafe, lounge, office, conference room, gym, bathrooms, laundry room, food pantry, garden, and gated parking. We also installed technology upgrades with wall to wall high speed wifi, a mobile zoom room, quick connect audio/video technology throughout the building, an remote controlled parking gate, keyless building access with an audit trail, and a state of the art security system.
The immediate impact we made through our new facility led the Episcopal Church to purchase the property nine-months ahead of schedule. Together we will plant the flag for The Abundant Harvest and St. Isidore Episcopal at 24803 Oakhurst Drive.
The Food Pantry. Minutes after opening our doors we began serving visitors from our small food pantry. Recognizing an urgent need from families in our area affected by COVID, we expanded immediately creating appointments on our website and contactless delivery with staff and volunteers hand-picking each care package containing a week's worth of groceries, weighing over seventy-pounds. News of our Offensive Generosity spread like wildfire through social media and by word-of-mouth. Our food pantry currently serves more than eight hundred families every week. This year we’ve given away more than a million pounds of food, exceeding all prior years combined.
We’ve also given away nearly ten thousand chef-prepared meals from our Kitchen, fueled by Meals To Go, Community Lunch, our Food Truck, and catering where every meal sold feeds another local family in need.
Fundraising and Events
Turkey Fry. Our first annual Thanksgiving Turkey Fry on Wednesday Nov. 25 sold more than twenty birds, raised more than $2,000 for The Abundant Harvest, and brought joy into the homes of many more families in our community. Please see our Thanksgiving Day Cover Story in The Conroe Courier and photos on our social media.
Giving Tuesday. With God's blessing we raised over $54,000 on Giving Tuesday Dec. 1, exceeding our fundraising goal of $50,000 to fund our food pantry in 2021. More than 150 donors gave $54,105 - and climbing with donations still arriving by mail at press time. We launched a dedicated webpage linked to an Aplos giving portal, setting a single-day giving record, and benefitting from a $25,000 private donor match. To see more, please visit HarvestKitchen.org/GivingTuesday.
The Harvest Club. Recurring monthly giving has grown significantly as we build The Harvest Club - families who pledge a donation of at least $50 per month in 2021. We are intent on growing our recurring donor base, as they provide critical support for ongoing costs, like adding families to our food pantry, sharing more hot meals with hungry visitors, and helping the homeless improve their station in life.
Partnerships. We have partnered with local groups and businesses like Altar'd State who collect non perishable items through food drives to help support our pantry. In addition to canned goods, 10% of all sales on Mondays during November and December will be donated to The Abundant Harvest as we partner up for Mission Mondays.
Social Enterprise
Meals To Go. Our Meals To Go program returned this year with significant upgrades. Our chef-prepared to-go meals are now available every Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday from 11:00 a.m to 6:00 p.m. We offer breakfast, lunch, and dinner, prepared hot and ready, for later, or frozen. Delivery is available curbside and through our new partnership with UberEats. We’re also offering Meals To Go Gift Cards through our website. We’ve also launched coupon codes which are used to recruit new and returning customers through referrals, promotional items, and customer feedback surveys which we used to improve our products. Our new marketing strategies include giving away free samples at the polls during the 2020 presidential election, installing signage in the lobby of local businesses, and social media ads featuring a new custom logo and tagline “Every meal you buy feeds another local family.” In addition to expanded hours, we also diversified our menu, added additional meal sizes, streamlined our online ordering, and launched a point-of-sale system on site at The Kitchen.
Community Lunch. We are open for community lunch served from Noon to 1:00 pm every Monday through Thursday, with a new weekly menu posted on our website, social media, and cafe TVs. Our lunches have been well attended, with a good blend of individuals, group reservations, and free lunches for our neighbors in need. We could use your help spreading the word so please join us for lunch and invite a friend to visit The Kitchen. Our Cafe will remain open during weekdays; please check HarvestKitchen.org for the latest hours.
Catering. We have been blessed to cater for a variety of local businesses and events this year with our food truck and sprinter van delivery and food service. Please spread the word and let us cater your next event or staff lunch.
Facility Rental. We will continue to rent our facilities as a source of revenue; the kitchen for cooking and baking, the cafe for events or Holiday Party, and the conference room for meetings.
Newsletter. This year we launched a monthly newsletter, The Good News. We have received very positive feedback from these communications and will continue to invest in them. Please email team@harvestkitchen.org to be added to the distribution list.
Volunteer Opportunities. We've been blessed to partner with organizations like the National Charity League, National Charity Roundtable, and US Vets, who help cook, deliver meals, host the cafe, intake clients, operate the food pantry, clean, and stock shelves. But we still want YOU to join our team.
Come visit us at The Kitchen this year for lunch, to volunteer, or just take a tour and see our ministry in action.
The Kitchen. We began the year 2020 under construction - smashing down walls, sawing through concrete, lifting A/C units on to the roof, building walk-in coolers, burying a grease trap, and mounting a vent hood - as we remodeled an 8,000 SF warehouse at Rayford and I-45. On March 22, we opened The Abundant Harvest Kitchen, fulfilling a vision years in the making and equipping our ministry with a kitchen, cafe, lounge, office, conference room, gym, bathrooms, laundry room, food pantry, garden, and gated parking. We also installed technology upgrades with wall to wall high speed wifi, a mobile zoom room, quick connect audio/video technology throughout the building, an remote controlled parking gate, keyless building access with an audit trail, and a state of the art security system.
The immediate impact we made through our new facility led the Episcopal Church to purchase the property nine-months ahead of schedule. Together we will plant the flag for The Abundant Harvest and St. Isidore Episcopal at 24803 Oakhurst Drive.
The Food Pantry. Minutes after opening our doors we began serving visitors from our small food pantry. Recognizing an urgent need from families in our area affected by COVID, we expanded immediately creating appointments on our website and contactless delivery with staff and volunteers hand-picking each care package containing a week's worth of groceries, weighing over seventy-pounds. News of our Offensive Generosity spread like wildfire through social media and by word-of-mouth. Our food pantry currently serves more than eight hundred families every week. This year we’ve given away more than a million pounds of food, exceeding all prior years combined.
We’ve also given away nearly ten thousand chef-prepared meals from our Kitchen, fueled by Meals To Go, Community Lunch, our Food Truck, and catering where every meal sold feeds another local family in need.
Fundraising and Events
Turkey Fry. Our first annual Thanksgiving Turkey Fry on Wednesday Nov. 25 sold more than twenty birds, raised more than $2,000 for The Abundant Harvest, and brought joy into the homes of many more families in our community. Please see our Thanksgiving Day Cover Story in The Conroe Courier and photos on our social media.
Giving Tuesday. With God's blessing we raised over $54,000 on Giving Tuesday Dec. 1, exceeding our fundraising goal of $50,000 to fund our food pantry in 2021. More than 150 donors gave $54,105 - and climbing with donations still arriving by mail at press time. We launched a dedicated webpage linked to an Aplos giving portal, setting a single-day giving record, and benefitting from a $25,000 private donor match. To see more, please visit HarvestKitchen.org/GivingTuesday.
The Harvest Club. Recurring monthly giving has grown significantly as we build The Harvest Club - families who pledge a donation of at least $50 per month in 2021. We are intent on growing our recurring donor base, as they provide critical support for ongoing costs, like adding families to our food pantry, sharing more hot meals with hungry visitors, and helping the homeless improve their station in life.
Partnerships. We have partnered with local groups and businesses like Altar'd State who collect non perishable items through food drives to help support our pantry. In addition to canned goods, 10% of all sales on Mondays during November and December will be donated to The Abundant Harvest as we partner up for Mission Mondays.
Social Enterprise
Meals To Go. Our Meals To Go program returned this year with significant upgrades. Our chef-prepared to-go meals are now available every Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday from 11:00 a.m to 6:00 p.m. We offer breakfast, lunch, and dinner, prepared hot and ready, for later, or frozen. Delivery is available curbside and through our new partnership with UberEats. We’re also offering Meals To Go Gift Cards through our website. We’ve also launched coupon codes which are used to recruit new and returning customers through referrals, promotional items, and customer feedback surveys which we used to improve our products. Our new marketing strategies include giving away free samples at the polls during the 2020 presidential election, installing signage in the lobby of local businesses, and social media ads featuring a new custom logo and tagline “Every meal you buy feeds another local family.” In addition to expanded hours, we also diversified our menu, added additional meal sizes, streamlined our online ordering, and launched a point-of-sale system on site at The Kitchen.
Community Lunch. We are open for community lunch served from Noon to 1:00 pm every Monday through Thursday, with a new weekly menu posted on our website, social media, and cafe TVs. Our lunches have been well attended, with a good blend of individuals, group reservations, and free lunches for our neighbors in need. We could use your help spreading the word so please join us for lunch and invite a friend to visit The Kitchen. Our Cafe will remain open during weekdays; please check HarvestKitchen.org for the latest hours.
Catering. We have been blessed to cater for a variety of local businesses and events this year with our food truck and sprinter van delivery and food service. Please spread the word and let us cater your next event or staff lunch.
Facility Rental. We will continue to rent our facilities as a source of revenue; the kitchen for cooking and baking, the cafe for events or Holiday Party, and the conference room for meetings.
Newsletter. This year we launched a monthly newsletter, The Good News. We have received very positive feedback from these communications and will continue to invest in them. Please email team@harvestkitchen.org to be added to the distribution list.
Volunteer Opportunities. We've been blessed to partner with organizations like the National Charity League, National Charity Roundtable, and US Vets, who help cook, deliver meals, host the cafe, intake clients, operate the food pantry, clean, and stock shelves. But we still want YOU to join our team.
Come visit us at The Kitchen this year for lunch, to volunteer, or just take a tour and see our ministry in action.