SmartSacks – Making a Difference

By Kim Merson

Giving back to the local community has always been very important to each and every member of the TeraTech team.  Now, more than ever before, TeraTech has realized that it is equally important in supporting this community as an entire enitiy as well.  This being said, at one of our weekly staff meetings, one of  our developers, Jo Ann Goertner, shared with us a volunteer program that she became aware of after doing some research for herself.  Now, TeraTech has joined as a Corporate volunteer for Manna Foods (http://www.mannafood.org/), in partnership with Montgomery County Public Schools (MCPS).  This is how it all began.

There are numerous children who are on free and reduced meals (FARM) within the county.  MCPS discovered that a lot of the children in the FARM program were coming to school hungry on Mondays, resulting in poor behavior and lower grades, all because a child was hungry.  Manna Foods partnered with MCPS and implemented the “SmartSacks” program.  This is where TeraTech steps in.

We sponsor Georgian Forest Elementary School in Silver Spring, MD.  This means we pickup the food from Manna Foods (bi-weekly), store it in our office (all non-perishable items), stuff all 11-15 items per week into a plastic grocery bag (all recycled and brought in by our staff, friends, and family) then deliver them to the school on Friday mornings for the school staff to get to the maximum allotted 48 children in time for take-home Friday afternoons.

This is most definitely a win-win-win situation.  It costs TeraTech just a small amount of time.  It usually takes approximately 30 minutes of bag-stuffing time after each one of our weekly meetings; we are gathered at this time anyway.

Is this something that you or an organization you are  involved with would like to participate in?  Please contact Kim (at) teratech (dot) com to obtain more information.  Meanwhile, please save your plastic grocery bags for us.  Also, if you are ever in the area of our office on a Wednesday afternoon about 1:45, stop by to join us in the bag-stuffing action!