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In order to increase the amount of food donations they can take in as well as sort and distribute Lovepacs is needing to increase their storage capacity but adding new and additional storage.
PROJECT IMAGE
This school year ('21-'22) we served between 550 - 650 students every month by providing them with shelf stable food items they could take home over school holidays. All packs get boxed and put on pallets while they wait for delivery.
This school year we ran out of storage space during preparations for the three long breaks. We've maxed out the floor's square footage.
Next year we will be serving up to 900 students each break. Increasing our vertical storage capacity with more shelving and a pallet lift will have an incredibly positive impact on our service capabilities and maximize efficiency in our high-ceilinged space. It will decrease the number of times pallets need to be moved, help us with staggering our delivery days, and ensure we can store enough food to help the additional 250+ students eat over holiday breaks.
The pallet lift will also help us better utilize the warehouse shelving we already own. Currently we cannot store anything on the top 8' high rack. With a lift we'd open up another 10 bays for pallets of food or packs beyond that mentioned above. That's 10,000+ cans of food, or 480 packs that we otherwise wouldn't have room for. The vertical space is there, we just aren't able to utilize it currently.
COMMUNITY IMPACT:
Lovepacs provides more than just snacks; we provide meals for breakfast and lunch and, depending on how each family uses their packs, potentially dinner as well. We do not qualify the students or families we serve, there are no factors that would prohibit students from receiving our food. Our aim is to help the students we serve feel not only fed but loved by their community.
Denton is one of the fastest growing districts in the nation. Currently there are 43 campuses in Denton ISD, with at least 3 more opening within the next two years. Lovepacs Denton will be expanding from 21 schools this year (between 550-650 students monthly) to 28 campuses next year (800-900 students) as we take over schools in the Braswell zone currently being served by the Aubrey chapter.
It is our goal to be serving every campus with a need in DISD within the next 3 years. Our best estimate indicates a district wide total of students in need at about 1400. 250 in the Braswell zone and 1150 under the other three high school zones. We must have more space in order to achieve this goal, and adding additional vertical storage is a cost-effective solution that allows us to expand in our existing space without increasing our fixed operating expenses.
We have come a long way since we opened this chapter in 2018, serving 65 students. We know our community feels the impact of what we do in the number of volunteers we have who want to come back time and again; in the faith the school counselors put in us to deliver on our promises; in the way our support rises along with our requests; in the number of emergency requests we receive outside of our holiday pack services. Lovepacs is serving a real need that was here before COVID and will certainly remain given the current economic climate.
PROJECT OUTLINE:
The goal of our project is to increase the storage capacity of our warehouse space. We currently use five
8'wx4'dx8'h warehouse pallet racking storage shelves as well as two 8'wx2'dx8'h industrial shelves to hold
all of the food we receive as donations, buy, sort, and pack. We also have a smaller standard shelving unit
that holds snacks. Once the food is packed it's stored on pallets in a grid on the floor next to the shelving area.
The purpose of the project is to allow us to begin storing packed boxes vertically to maximize the space
available to us. To do so we need to purchase 2 pallet racking base units, 4 extra beams, and a pallet lift.
This will add 24 feet of 3-high pallet storage, or room for 864 boxes, while still leaving room for 720 on the
floor grid.
We would also like to replace the 2' deep industrial unit with another pallet racking unit to give us
more pallet bays for inventoried food and snacks, which requires purchasing an add-on pallet
racking unit with longer beams.
If our request for funds is approved we will use them to buy the following from www.ULine.com :
2 base units 8'x'4'x10h H-5718 $ 650e $ 1,300
1 add-on unit 12'x4'x8h H-6806-ADD $ 655 $ 655
4 additional 8' beams H-5953 $ 145e $ 580
36 cross bars H-5727 $ 16e $ 576
Semi-Electric Straddle Stacker H-5440 $ 3925 $ 3,925
Total $ 7,036
We are requesting partial funding of this project at this time and will come back to see if we can fund additionally. Even with partial funds they will be able to expand food service.
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