Shannon Oloughlin - Region 8

​During my clinical setting, I had the opportunity to help plan and organize a hospital food drive with the local food bank. During this event, I worked with the Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion committee at the hospital with the CNM, the hospital marketing director and the local food bank. This was a month-long event where we had 8 cans throughout the hospital. We asked for foods that the food bank needed the most. In preparation for the event, I worked with the marketing director to create flyers to be distributed throughout the hospital and to the community.  These flyers were published in the weekly roundup email, on all the TVs in the hospital and to local media stations. We also collected volunteers for our drive through event for the community food drive. Our goal was to collect 500 pounds of food, which would provide about 400 meals. I worked with the DEI committee, CNM and the finance team to coordinate an ice cream social if we met our goal.  I collected and weighed the donations weekly and reported the weight to the CNM and marketing director so we could promote how close we were to our goal. During the drive through event, we had three local media outlets cover the event. At the conclusion of the event, we hosted a reveal with hospital leadership, the local food bank and the three media outlets. This event was hosted by the CEO and CNM, where they announced we collected 2.5x our goal, 1300 pounds which would create about 1100 meals for the community.
 
This opportunity allowed me to use my communication and organizational skills to create a successful event. I learned how to properly market the event to draw in participation and how food disparity impacted the community. I also learned the impact/importance an RD can have on an event like this to educate and help build connections within the community.  Through this event, I was able to make strong connections with the local food bank and other hospital staff that were crucial to the event’s success and will be helpful in the remaining part of my rotation. I was also able to use my knowledge of nutrition to educate the hospital staff and community. This event surpassed many expectations, and its success encouraged the hospital to make it a yearly event and continue a relationship with the local food bank. 

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