Office Assistant InternAt — Heart of Compassion Distribution

Founded in 2003, Heart of Compassion (HOC) Distribution is a 501(c)(3) food bank and social service organization. HOC works to alleviate hunger, food insecurities, and the suffering of those who have fallen on hard times. Our Fighting Hunger Feeding Hope program is a twice-weekly public food distribution where we provide groceries to 400 families. We serve seniors, veterans, single parents, low-income individuals from all walks of life, those experiencing homelessness, and anyone else in need. Our men's rescue home is a men's recovery home where homeless men struggling with addictions can recover from their addictions. We also serve as a hub as we partner with smaller food pantries and provide them with food to distribute to local families, which serve about 3,000 people weekly.

Heart of Compassion's Fighting Hunger Feeding Hope Project’s mission is focused on edible food recovery, and we aim to expand operations to recover more edible food that would otherwise be routed to landfills. We are increasing capacity for our edible food recovery program. To enable this expansion of operations, we will need to increase our volunteer base so we can provide more food to those in need. More than 4,000,000 people are facing hunger in California, and our Hunger Feeding Hope Project will enable us to mitigate climate while simultaneously addressing food scarcity in our community. Office assistant intern duties include, but are not limited to:

• Expand operational capacity to recover more edible food and divert it from landfills
• Cultivate relationships with local food producers and distributors to increase awareness, educate about the benefits of our program, and increase food donations
• Expand and strengthen volunteer base to aid in distribution of recovered foods
• Develop educational materials, social media campaigns, and conduct community outreach events to inform community members of volunteer opportunities and how to receive food distributions
• Increase community engagement

Intern will help Fight Hunger and Feed Hope at our nonprofit food bank and learn nonprofit business skills, including customer service, office skills, and interpersonal skills. 

Tasks:

• Registering food recipients using an iPad and paper forms.
• Fielding phone calls and providing the public with information regarding food resources, volunteering opportunities, and community service opportunities.
• Inputting volunteer data into a database and filing volunteer forms.

Training:

Orientation, on-the-job training, weekly meetings with supervisor, job shadowing. To help the student achieve their learning outcomes, supervisor will personally train them in honing their skills to meet goals and meet with them one-on-one each week to discuss progress. Training is hands-on, on-the-job training.

Learning Outcomes:

1. By the end of the internship, the student will be able to create and execute outreach strategies to engage community partners, donors, and service recipients.
2. By the end of the internship, the student will be able to use data collection tools to monitor program outcomes and assess the impact of food distribution initiatives.
3. By the end of the internship, the student will be able to contribute to volunteer management systems, including scheduling, training, and evaluating volunteer performance.