Today we’d like to introduce you to Mandi Nelson.
Hi Mandi, thanks for sharing your story with us. To start, maybe you can tell our readers some of your backstory.
My background has always been in the service/hospitality industry and I have fallen in love with the business and never wanted to leave even after I got a college degree. This industry has been extremely good to me and landed me in a wine position selling small boutique family-owned wines to restaurants. In March 2020, Covid hit and the company I was working for had to let go half of the employees due to the pandemic. I have never been unemployed in my life and knew there wouldn’t be a lot of companies hiring for specialty positions like mine for a long time. I also was seeing all of my dear restaurant friends in the same position as me but still trying to feed their staff while taking the financial hit from closure and trying to still feed their staff. I quickly reached out to my friend that had started Houston Shift Meal and asked if I could copy what she was doing for Austin. She agreed and game me, the blueprint for how to carry on her amazing work. In May of 2020, I started Austin Shift Meal. Every week we put together a bag of 4-5 meals from local restaurants to give to the out of work hospitality people. The organization fundraises to pay the restaurants for the meals and we have volunteers that all come together every week to distribute the meals. Today we have done over 38 events and handed out almost 15,000 meals from over 90 restaurants.
Would you say it’s been a smooth road, and if not what are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced along the way?
It has not been an easy road. Due to needing to get this off of the ground in a quick manner, I partnered with a non-profit that was already in existence. This was great to help us get up and running quickly but later down the road, prevented us applying from a lot of other grants and financial aid. This was because the non-profit was applying for the same money and requested that we not apply for the same funds. There were months that I had events on the books but didn’t know where I was going to come up with the money to pay for the food. We always had some great people in the community that would step up and help make it happen for us! My latest challenge was during the crazy snowstorm that hit us here in Texas. Austin was truly unprepared for 6.5 inches of snow and multiple days of below freezing temperatures. At the time, I had provided shelter for various friends and family that were without power and water to for them.
Unfortunately for all of us they arrived and my power and water went out. We were scheduled to do an event that Tuesday and moved it to Thursday hoping the weather would improve. Both events we had to cancel due to most restaurants not having power and water. This was incredibly challenging to try to cancel and change these dates when I had no power. I am still not sure why, but without power everyone in my household including myself couldn’t even load the internet on our phones. I also have two key volunteers that help me coordinate all of the events and they were also without power and water. After things melted and we were able to get back on our feet, we planned our next event. To make things even more challenging, I acquired Covid during the snowpox with the various people coming in and out of the house for power and water. I was so impressed with the volunteers stepping up to the plate and running Austin Shift Meal while I had to sit things out and recover. So far to date, we have not had any issues of Covid in our group and we have all maintained a healthy working environment!
Thanks for sharing that. So, maybe next you can tell us a bit more about your work?
I recently was hired for Folio Fine Wine. We are a wine importer/broker that was started by Michael Mondavi. I represent fine wines from all around the world representing the regions of Texas, Oklahoma, New Mexico and Louisiana. My new job has been extremely supportive in allowing me to continue to keep Austin Shift Meal keep going. I also have two key volunteers that have stepped up to help run and carry the weight of the planning. Without them and the many other volunteers, this organization wouldn’t be able to have continued!
We all have a different way of looking at and defining success. How do you define success?
To me success is a feeling. I always have this amazing feeling of pride, accomplishment, and huge eye smiles on the faces of the volunteers and recipients every Tuesday. We are constantly receiving incredible comments, gratitude and sweet thank you presents from our recipients that keep us going! I always leave each event on a high note and this feeling keeps me motivated to continue this work!
Pricing:
- 2,500 is the cost of 1 event and we do this event every week. Each event provides 4-5 meals to 70 people
Contact Info:
- Email: austinshiftmeal@gmail.com
- Website: www.austinshiftmeal.com
- Instagram: @austinshiftmeal
- Facebook: @austinshiftmeal
- Twitter: @austinshiftmeal
