Operations team

FoodBank Lakeside Operations distributes or delivers despensas to approved families in Ajijic, San Antonio Tlayacapan, Riberas del Pilar, Chapala,  Santa Cruz de la Soledad and San Nicolas de Ibarra. The team responsible for ensuring that families receive their Despensas include 14 Mexican Nationals and 12 Expats, who together distribute 308 Despensas a month. Despensas are either distributed from a central location (typically the grocers who assemble the bags) or they are delivered directly to the homes of the families. 

• Local Coordinators are responsible for interviewing each family that might receive a despensa to understand their family needs. This includes their economic and health situation. 
• Identify potential recipient families
• Visit their home, interview, fill out intake form and take photos
• Follow FBL guidelines 
• Local Coordinators are always responsible and have the final say about who is on or off the list
• Keep track of changing circumstances, so they also remove families from the list when their situations improve
• Responsible for ordering and distributing despensas every month 
• Help  determine what goes in a despensa (see the list for despensa items)

Each community self-organizes has a team of locals and expat volunteers who work together to determine the best way to distribute despensas.

• Deliver directly to people’s homes
• Distribute from a central location 
• Work with local grocers El Surtidor in Chapala and Antonio’s Abarrote in San Antonio
• Grocer’s staff bag each despensa 
• Grocers allow us to use their location to distribute or their staff also help load the cars for delivery.