JDQ and the Surrey Food Bank

In a couple of previous posts I mentioned my involvement with JDQ ,their 3 Spheres of Reciprocity community help program and their latest project with the Surrey Food Bank in BC. A couple of volunteer developers who are VANTUG members are working on the project. I said that I would post here from time to time as to how things are going. The project is well under way, the specifications are close to finalization and the application technologies will be chosen very soon. I happened to bump into the PM at the Microsoft realDevelopment_06 event in Vancouver yesterday, and he tells me that SQL Server looks like the database of choice.

I also received an invitation to join JDQ at their table for the Surrey Food Bank annual fundraiser breakfast, which took place on May 31. It was quite an impressive event with approx. 700 people there. One of the local TV personalities gave a talk about the work that they do, only to reveal that he was one of their past customers; good heartstrings stuff :)! Feeding over 13,000 people every month is quite some challenge and one must acknowledge not only the tremendous community work that they do but also admire how well organized that they are. Unfortunately, it is the ever increasing demand which has prompted the need to overhaul their IT systems, in particular that they now need to service a mobile registration system via laptop. I can easily see why JDQ saw them as very deserving of their help and I am very pleased to have been able to assist.

I am sure that there are far too many other "Surrey Food Banks" across Canada. I would like to encourage you to look for ways that you can help. It doesn't have to be by opening your cheque book, although they will readily take your money :). Your professional help and experience can often be more valuable.

Cheers
Graham Jones