1. Bringing a Local Food Bank into the 21 st Century Steven Piwonka, Northwestern State University

2. The Reason for the Project- The Honors Program at NSU Implemented in Fall 2011 College of Nursing Curriculum – Same Classes, Additional Assignments – Mentors guide students and review projects – Average of 2 Honors classes per semester This project satisfies the Honors requirement for 2 courses: – Nursing Informatics – Care of the Older Adult

3. St. Vincent DePaul Food Pantry Helping families for over 12 years Located in Shreveport 300-400 families served each month Open Monday and Friday afternoons Clients apply by filling out a form and providing evidence of need. Clients can pick up a box of food once a month. A box of food contains between 30-50 lb.

4. The Problems! No easy way to track how often a particular client picks up a box of food Cumbersome record retrieval Difficult to verify or change client information Daily recordkeeping consists of recording a box’s receipt as USDA or Non-USDA. Reporting to USDA is a manual process that involves calculating totals.

5. First Step: Evaluating the Paper Form The form needed revision Necessary information was written in margins and out of order Once the form was revised, the form was converted into an Access Database form

6. This is the Main Menu of the Access Database. Next: Creation of a Database

7. This screen stores all of the information contained on the paper form. It mirrors the paper form to make entering the form’s data a smooth process. Entering in Client Data

8. Recording Receipt of a Food Box This screen is used to distribute boxes of food. The client’s data can be verified here. All of the dates a client has received boxes of food are shown in the table on the right.

9. Reporting Totaling the number of boxes distributed is as easy as picking a date range.

10. The Report This report is a Pivot Table, which is a dynamic type of chart which sums up the activity of days, months, and years.

11. Children The report shown here returns all clients who have children, as well as the last time they received a box of food. This is useful for special occasions like holidays.

12. Deleting Old Records This function allows food bank employees to delete food box receipts. The capability may not be used, but it was created per request.

13. Security Since the database contains sensitive client information, it is important to protect it.

14. Response from St. Vincent DePaul The database is just what they wanted! The paper forms are still used in the application process. – After that, the paper forms are shredded. Reporting food distribution is simple and fast. They like that the database screens contain documentation so there’s no need for a reference.

15. Next Steps During the summer semester, the project continues with an assessment of the population served by St. Vincent DePaul. A study will be conducted to determine what disease processes affect that community- hypertension, diabetes, obesity, etc. Strategies to control those problems through proper diet will be explored.

16. Next Steps, Continued One problem that has been identified is a disparity of available cooking methods. – Some clients have refused certain foods because of an inability to cook them. Recipes for all kinds of cooking methods would be helpful. A complicating problem is the inconsistency of the types and amounts of food provided by the USDA for distribution.

17. What was learned I did not expect that so many people relied on institutions like St. Vincent DePaul for the food they eat. I enjoyed using the skills I’d learned to help make a difference. Now the food pantry is able to do their work more efficiently.

18. In Closing… I appreciate the opportunity to present this project at the ULS Academic Summit! Thank you for your attention. Any questions?