The Challenges They Were Facing
In spite of this success, the leadership of the Houston Food Bank knew they needed to improve their operations. In particular, they desired to automate and improve operations, develop tools to connect with food recipients, and, in the aftermath of Hurricane Harvey, protect network servers from possible catastrophic failure from natural disasters. In addition, they were looking for a partner to help design and implement technology tools for a unique program to feed at-risk Houston-area school children on the weekends who would otherwise go hungry.

Finding a Solution
The food bank needed to identify a technology partner to help drive their transformation and drive their continued growth. As the first step in improving overall operations, Poetic designed and implemented a server migration project for the food bank. Hurricane Harvey was a wake-up call for the organization. There was catastrophic flooding across Houston and the food bank needed reliable servers to help the community recover as quickly as possible.

Poetic worked with the food bank to move all of their data into multiple servers in the cloud in multiple markets, increasing speed and optimizing data while giving the food bank a hurricane-proof solution.
As part of their digital transformation, the food bank needed to upgrade or improve a number of applications used to manage their operations. The Poetic team provided the following:

• Support for the Houston Food Bank mobile application.
• The Poetic team built connections between many of the food bank’s services and portals to pull data into one centralized data warehouse. This data was then used to build reports showing program efficiency, distribution patterns, and ultimately, showing where food is needed most.
• Improvement on the existing “Share Your Holidays” program software to make the volunteer experience more streamlined. Volunteers working at the food bank have an easy-to-use map showing where the food is available, and when individuals in need of food contact the organization to make a request, the volunteers can use the map to direct them to the closest location.
• Development of an interactive map that enables HFB constituants to find food pantries, donation locations, and other HFB program locations. The map lets the HFB staff configure which programs to show so it can be reused in several places on the website.
• Design and development of a custom password management application to simplify and improve the administration and management of their passwords, reducing workload and time for system administrators.

Backpack Buddy Program
One in four southeast Texas children are at risk of hunger, lacking consistent access to enough nutritious food. During weekends and holidays, many area school children go home to little or no meals. Research shows that hungry children have poorer mental and physical health, tend to miss more days of school, and suffer greater rates of behavioral disorders.
Proper nutrition is vital to their growth and development. The Houston Food Bank decided to do something about it by launching the Backpack Buddy program designed to match at-risk school children with the food they need.

Working with the food bank team, Poetic designed and implemented a web-based solution for Backpack Buddy program. Poetic developed a web application that allows schools to apply to the program, track inventory, request food, and accurately account for food distribution. The Backpack Buddy program is successfully providing at-risk students throughout the Houston area with nutritious, child-friendly food to take home over the weekend.
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By teaming with Poetic on these improvements and initiatives, the food bank continues to successfully fulfill its mission statement: “Filling Pantries. Filling Lives.” We look forward to continuing our work together in service of this vital mission.