Food Bank Touts Benefits of Technology

The Harry Chapin Food Bank of Southwest Florida has posted a report on line detailing its efforts to increase its efficiency through technology.
The Fort Myers charity has received about $40,000 worth of computers, printers, and software, as well as technical assistance, from Hewlett-Packard Company, a Palo Alto, Cal., computer giant.

Both organizations are hoping that the Harry Chapin Food Bank will become a model for how charities, as well as small businesses, can use computers to do their jobs better.

The technology has enabled the organization, which provides food to 150 charities in five counties, to calculate exactly how much is going to groups in each jurisdiction. The food bank is also using the equipment to institute system that will allow soup kitchens and other charities it serves to order food on line. And they are implementing a barcode system whereby all food will be tracked electronically.

Hawley Botchford, executive director of the food bank, says that before the group's partnership with Hewlett-Packard, the charity had just two outdated computers that were not equipped to use the Internet. "We were not technologically competent," he says.

Hewlett-Packard is now working on similar projects with three other affiliates of Second Harvest, the nation's largest chain of food banks, as well as with the group's national office.

You can download the guide by clicking here. (Requires an Acrobat Reader from Adobe)