Question: Can you share your organization's mission and what inspired its creation?

Answer: Hands On mission is to meet community needs through service. Its programs connect volunteers to service activities supporting 160+ nonprofits, schools, and civic organizations. Hands On helps its partners maximize volunteer potential, brings awareness to the challenges facing our neighbors and communities, and inspires people to become involved in causes they care about. Hands On also partners with the city to coordinate volunteers whenever there is a disaster.

The idea of Hands On was started from Hal Cato, he was volunteering at Meals on Wheels at the time. Him and a group of friends volunteering with him, started to share a deeper passion for volunteering, and the idea was formed! The deeper story of what inspired Hands On is listed in this link. 

Question: How many people does your organization serve annually, and what areas do you focus on?

Answer: Hands On helped coordinate 22,000 volunteers serving 66 thousand hours in the past year. As well we partner with 160+ community partner organizations in the community! We focus on meeting the needs of our community partners by providing them with volunteers to deepen the work the nonprofit is accomplishing in the community. 

Question: What do you believe are the root causes of hunger in the communities you serve?

Answer: While there are many causes of hunger in our community, our goal is to provide aid to the nonprofits in our community. To see all the nonprofits, we partner with that aid with food insecurity use this link. It will show you all of our community partners and by clicking the row saying "Impact areas" it will organize them in alphabetical order, and you can see how many nonprofits we partner with that aid in food insecurity. As well if you click on one of those partners you will see who they are, what they do and can access all volunteer opportunities they have open through our website! 

Question: How does your organization address not just hunger but also the underlying factors contributing to food insecurity?

Answer: Our organization helps all of the community needs, not just food insecurity. We also partner with agencies aiding homelessness, youth education, emergency services, family services, health and wellness and much more! 

Question: What programs or initiatives have been most impactful in fighting hunger?

Answer: Some of the most impactful projects that fight hunger would be our snack pack kit projects. This will normally happen at a large conference or meeting with a corporation. The Hands On team then leads the corporation in packing snack bags for children in school that live in food insecure housing or the after-school programs. Photos can be found here. 

As well, on the Hands On website, the donations page it is kept up to date with what nonprofits need in the community and members of the community can donate or run a donation drive to get the needed supplies for the nonprofit. That page can be found here. 

Question: How do you ensure the food provided meets the nutritional needs of those you serve?

Answer: The nutritional packs that are made for our local Nashville schools contain items like fruit leather, and other low calorie nutritional snacks. 

Question: How can individuals or local communities get involved with your organization to support your efforts?

Answer: Individuals can go to our volunteer calendar and sign up for any event that works for their schedule and goals. They can also look at our needed donations page that list out what items local nonprofits are in need of and create a donation drive to aid that nonprofit. Hands On also offers a group calendar that allows you to sign up as a group and view opportunities that the group can do all together. If a large group does not see what they are looking for, our corporate projects team can tailer a volunteer event to the corporations needs and a nonprofits needs!  

Question: What partnerships have been essential to your success, and how can others collaborate with you?

Answer: Our nonprofit partners and our corporate partners have been essential in our success. Our corporate partners volunteer together to create big impacts for the nonprofits' needs. You can read about some of these big projects here.  As well each of our volunteers makes changes in our communities every day, ranging from reading to children to building outdoor classrooms! 

Question: What are your long-term goals for ending hunger in your area, and how do you plan to achieve them?

Answer: We plan to continue working with our nonprofit partners and getting them the volunteers they need to make the changes they are striving to make!

Question: How does your organization incorporate sustainability into its practices to create lasting change?

Answer: We support many organizations that impact sustainability as well and provide volunteers to widen the impact that organization can make. On this link you can also look at what community patterns we have that support sustainability.