Pandemic Pushes Food Bank to Adapt

The Problem

A community-critical nonprofit in St. Louis needed to adapt in the pandemic. 

A St. Louis-based nonprofit centered around hunger relief needed to expand their services quickly amidst the pandemic. While ramping up their operation, they needed to practice social distancing and transition some staff to work from home.

Their most significant pain points included: 

• Lack of Wi-Fi in parts of their warehouse
• Server nearing end of life
• Inventory management platform migration needed
• Education programs needed to transition online

Before the pandemic, this organization was servicing 200,000 people monthly. Their emergency food distribution, which includes 2.75 million pounds of food yearly, coupled with advocacy work makes them a critical resource to many in the community. 

The Solution

GadellNet’s team installed two wireless access points in their warehouse, strategically places in order to give the team full connection. This allowed their business operations to run much more smoothly with no rework. 

The server migration was executed precisely by GadellNet’s team to ensure nothing was lost and there was little to no downtime during critical business hours. This took strategic planning and coordination with the client and key vendors. 

GadellNet additionally transitioned their educational program for single mothers to an online format and sourced Chromebooks for the “Momvocates” to make sure they were able to get the education they wanted. 

The Results

This organization was able to scale up to serve the community when they needed them most. The Wi-Fi and server projects lowered impact to their team and allowed them to become more efficient.  The impact of the education program transition enabling the Momvocates to become educated and make a positive impact on the next generation cannot be measured. 

This nonprofit has continued to serve the community with these improvements moving forward from the pandemic.

GadellNet has been a valuable partner throughout the pandemic, enabling us to adapt our technology to rapidly-changing circumstances as we meet the increased need for food and resources in the community. We are grateful for their professionalism, expertise and support.

Executive Director