ALAN IN ACTION

July 2024

FROM THE DRIVER'S SEAT: A NOTE FROM THE EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR

Back when we were kids, July often meant spending a week or two at summer camp. (Go ahead. Close your eyes and conjure up happy memories of lanyards, canoes and swims in the lake. I’ll wait.)

One of the best things about the camp experience was being outdoors. And one of the worst was . . . being outdoors, because things like thunder, lightning and rain seemed to hit – and ruin our best-laid plans – with great regularity.

Here at ALAN, most of us are far removed from those idyllic years. Even so, we still have a complicated relationship with inclement weather, especially during Hurricane Season.

Obviously, this year’s season has already been off to a busy start as we’ve worked diligently to help our friends in Texas deal with the after-effects of Hurricane Beryl (see our “ALAN Activation Update” for more details). And unfortunately it’s likely to get even busier if experts’ predictions prove to be accurate.

That’s why we continually thank our lucky stars to have so many amazing supporters as part of our extensive “buddy system,” including many you’ll read about in this issue of ALAN In Action. Because of this support, we are far better prepared to weather whatever challenges might come our way, and so can the many non-profits and disaster survivors who rely on our help. And that makes us very happy campers indeed.

Here’s hoping the rest of your summer is safe, successful and storm-free.

– Kathy

P.S. For “s’more” information about how you can be a part of our hurricane preparation and relief efforts this year, check out https://www.alanaid.org/2024-hurricane-preparation/ on our website.

ALAN ACTIVATION UPDATE

ALAN is actively responding to Hurricane Beryl, which caused significant destruction in the Caribbean before making landfall as a Category 1 hurricane in Texas earlier this month.

If you’re a business or individual who would like to support our efforts, here are three quick suggestions for ways you can help:

Offer in-kind transportation, warehousing, material handling equipment, and expertise (for a full list of our open logistics needs, visit our Disaster Micro-Site or the “Lend A Hand” section of this newsletter).
Make a financial contribution.
Follow our social channels (@alanaid) and reshare our disaster updates.

If you’re a non-profit in need of donated logistics assistance, please feel free to submit a request via our website at https://www.alanaid.org/request-support/

Situational updates and important resources can be found by visiting our Disaster Micro-Site.

LEND A HAND: HELP US WITH THESE OPEN ALAN CASES

You may take a summer vacation. But disasters don’t – which is why we still have several unfilled logistics needs on our website. Let us know if you’d be willing to help us with one or more of them.

Transportation and Transportation Equipment

Case 9464: Transportation one (1) wooden crate semi-electric pallet jacks from Elwood, IL 60421 to Charlotte, NC 28262

Case 9463: Transportation one (1) wooden crate semi-electric pallet jacks from Elwood, IL 60421 to Santa Barbara, CA 93101

Case 9462: Transportation one (1) wooden crate semi-electric pallet jacks from Elwood, IL 60421 to Flower Mound, TX 75028

Case 9461: Transportation one (1) wooden crate semi-electric pallet jacks from Elwood, IL 60421 to New Haven, CT 06513

Case 9460: Transportation one (1) wooden crate semi-electric pallet jacks from Elwood, IL 60421 to Bowie, MD 20720

Case 9446: Transportation one (1) 20′ container from Delaware, OH 43015 to Ecuador (Vulnerable Populations)

Case 9435: Ground transportation (power unit) for one (1) shower trailer from Houston, TX to Tampa, FL (Disaster Preparedness)

Case 9430: Ocean transport for three (3) pallets of solar panels and equipment from CA to HI (Disaster Recovery)

Warehousing

Case 9390: Warehouse space in/around Portland, OR 97203 (Vulnerable Populations)

Material Handling Equipment and Warehouse Supplies

Case 9449: One (1) forklift to Charlotte, NC 28262 (Vulnerable Populations)

Case 9264: One (1) forklift to Tampa, FL Pinellas Park, FL 33781 (Vulnerable Populations)

THANK YA, THANK YA VERY MUCH: NEWS BRIEFS ABOUT ALAN’S AWESOME SUPPORTERS

MHE MVP. We may not be gymnasts. But we’re definitely doing handsprings over a recent material equipment donation we received from NOBLELIFT. Currently being stored free of charge by our friends at Partner’s Warehouse (and recently affixed with customized QR codes by in-kind donor CargoSense) the 80 donated pallet jacks will enable us to help many more non-profit organizations with their disaster relief and other humanitarian efforts. To learn more about this incredible donation and how it’s being used, see our “Pallet Jack(pot)” story later in this issue.

Golden State generosity. It’s not hard to see why we’re (California) dreaming of finding more in-kind donors like Prism Logistics. The company recently answered our call to provide donated warehousing within Northern California for 422 boxes (that they also palletized free of charge) of donated clothing and shoes. Equally generous was the anonymous donor who then transported these pallets from California to Utah. Our friends at Distribute Aid are using these items for international humanitarian response.

Movin’ down the road. Four pallets of hygiene kits recently completed a 200-mile journey from Baltimore to Yonkers, thanks to ALAN and in-kind donor A. Duie Pyle, which supplied the donated transportation on behalf of our friends at Distribute Aid. The non-profit is using the kits to help with international humanitarian response.

Thank heavens they weren’t too swamped to say yes. When Louisiana’s Hearts 2 Serve needed the loan of a forklift as well as the contributed transportation to get the forklift delivered, we knew exactly who to “geaux” for help. Please join us in extending a big bayou beaucoup to in-kind donors Briggs Equipment and Wilson Warehouse for their generous assistance. Hearts 2 Serve is using the equipment to help with its ongoing efforts to fight economic insecurity.

Don’t fuggedabout this fabulous ALAN donor. Two crates of tools and equipment have made their way from Kansas to Ohio to help Mennonite Disaster Service with disaster preparedness and response efforts courtesy of Port Jersey Logistics, which provided the ground transportation free of charge. Port Jersey also contributed the transportation we needed to get NOBLELIFT’s 80-pallet donation transported to its temporary home at a warehouse in Illinois. Thank you so much, Port Jersey. (Or should we say, thank you’se?)

Deja two. Two months after ALAN helped Beyond the Brotherhood find donated transportation for 40,000 pounds of hyperbaric chamber components, a second ALAN in-kind donor (hip, hip hooray for Ryder) stepped up to provide another large hyperbaric chamber parts move from Florida to Arizona. Beyond The Brotherhood is using the chambers to treat Navy SEALs who are recovering from traumatic brain injuries.

Little ditty about (a donated) jack . . . Cue the famous John Mellencamp song and help us salute Southwest Toyotalift for helping us fill two requests: one for a donated forklift and another for an electric pallet jack from our friends at Volunteers for Public Service. The non-profit is using the equipment to help improve its humanitarian efforts in Hemet, California.

Houston, we have a solution. When Food for the Poor asked ALAN for assistance getting four pallets of tarps, hygiene kits and diapers transported from Florida to Houston for post-flood relief, frequent in-kind donor CEVA Logistics quickly Texas-two-stepped up with the donated shipping. Is it any wonder why we adore this consistently helpful company so much?

One vinyl thank you. Twenty pallets of billboard vinyl have completed a pro bono journey from Oregon to Texas to help Every Shelter with its disaster preparedness work thanks to frequent ALAN in-kind donor The UPS Foundation, which kindly contributed the transportation. Thank you, UPS. When it comes to helping out, you really are the total package.

THREE CHEERS FOR RED, WHITE AND BLUE... AND THESE RECENT ALAN FINANCIAL DONORS

IT’S A SNAP (A PHOTO TRAIL OF WHAT ALAN’S BEEN UP TO SINCE YOU SAW US LAST)

Play it again, ma’am (and sir). Kathy Fulton and ALAN board member Mike Gardner got ALAN’s 2024 Disaster Simulation game play off to a rousing start when they led the simulation for 83 students at Miami University of Ohio on April 29. Several weeks later Kathy headed west (virtually) to lead the simulation for an additional 48 students at Brigham Young University.

Magnificent seven. Several ALAN team members – including IWLA’s newly crowned Sandy Vosk Outstanding Partner Award recipient Tim Osmulski – were thrilled to catch up in person during IWLA’s annual conference in central Florida this past spring. Thank you, IWLA, for continuing to support our mission – and see you at next year’s conference.

A penny for your thoughts. Mississippi State University has opened its 33^rd Annual Study of Logistics and Transportation Trends survey and it’s looking for your input. For each completed response, MSU will make a donation to ALAN. Click here to take the survey (it only takes 15 minutes!).

By the time they got to Phoenix . . . there wasn’t time to visit the Grand Canyon. However Kathy Fulton and her fellow panelists did manage to do a grand job of addressing the topic of “Donations: A Help Or A Hindrance To Serving Communities?” during their breakout session at May’s National VOAD Conference in Arizona.

Citizens’ Address. ALAN Operations Coordinator Alexia Nobles proudly joined several expert guest speakers from Team Rubicon and MIT to present at Troops2Logistics’ State of Humanitarian Logistics seminar back in May.

You really “nerd” to know about this shopping/giving opportunity. Are you a certified supply chain geek? If so, we have the perfect shopping opportunity for you. Barcoding Inc. has a #supplychaingeek store, and it’s donating (and matching) all of the store’s profits to ALAN until November. So what are you waiting for? Head on over to https://supplychaingeek.com/ to support our work and score some awesome apparel and accessories.

PALLET JACK(POT): THE STORY BEHIND AN EXCITING EQUIPMENT DONATION

While numerous Olympians are preparing to set world records in Paris, the team at ALAN is enjoying a record year of its own thanks to the largest pallet jack donation in its 19-year history.

It all started in 2022, when the Material Handling Equipment Distributors Association, responding to ALAN’s request for help with Hurricane Ian relief, introduced ALAN to NOBLELIFT. Within days, NOBLELIFT donated three electric pallet jacks to assist the Harry Chapin Food Bank in Fort Myers – and let ALAN know it would be happy to help out again.

“Many in-kind donors would be one and done after such a donation, especially because material handling equipment can be so expensive,” said ALAN Executive Director Kathy Fulton. “But thankfully for us, the opposite was true.”

Over the next two years, NOBLELIFT continued to say yes to multiple ALAN requests, ultimately donating more than $30,000 worth of material handling equipment to nine different non-profit ALAN partners across the United States. Some, like the NYC Humanitarian Emergency Response and Relief Centers, use their donated equipment to help with refugee relief efforts. Others, like Truckers Safety, Support and Supply Fleet, employ theirs to support poverty relief initiatives.

This would usually be the part of the story when we’d say something like “in-kind generosity doesn’t get any better than this.” However given what happened next, that would be a massive understatement.

In February of this year, NOBLELIFT called ALAN with a first-of-its-kind-offer: Would ALAN be interested in taking possession of 80 semi-electric pallet jacks to use as needed for disaster response and recovery efforts?

“Needless to say, our answer was a highly enthusiastic yes. After all, we’d never received an offer of this size, and we frequently get requests for this type of equipment,” Fulton said. “But then we realized we had to quickly get to work, because with no logistics assets, space or services of our own, we needed several other in-kind donors to help us accommodate and manage it.”

Shortly thereafter, one longtime ALAN contributor, Partners Warehouse, agreed to house the pallet jacks free of charge until they could be redistributed to our non-profit partners. And another, Port Jersey Logistics, donated the transportation needed to move the pallet jacks to Partners’ warehouse in Elwood, Illinois.

Meanwhile new ALAN partner CargoSense donated 80 customized QR code placards so ALAN could individually label each pallet jack. (“That way, every time a jack is rehomed, the non-profit will be able to scan the QR code and share impact stories spotlighting how the equipment is boosting its humanitarian work,” Fulton explained.)

According to Fulton, ALAN has already started distributing the donated pallet jacks. Two have made their way to Gentry, Arkansas, to aid Adventist Community Service with tornado response efforts (thank you UPS Foundation and Coyote Logistics for donating the transportation). Six have been delivered to Valdosta, Georgia, where they are helping Second Harvest of South Georgia combat hunger in their community. And several others are awaiting transportation donations so they can head to their new homes in California, Connecticut, and Texas.

The ALAN team anticipates distributing several others to non-profits that need MHE for relief efforts this Hurricane Season and will share the remainder with various other disaster relief organizations and non-profit as requests for assistance come in.

“It’s a great feeling to know that we already have this equipment on hand and ready to be deployed, because it means we can assist our disaster relief partners on the ground much faster – and help boost the operations of more community-based non-profits who don’t have extensive logistics assets of their own,” Fulton said. “We’re so thankful to NOBLELIFT for this incredible gift and to our friends at MHEDA, Partners, Port Jersey and CargoSense for the roles they’ve played in supporting it.”

“I have been familiar with ALAN for many years, starting with my days of serving on the MHEDA Board of Directors. I agree with their mission,” said Loren Swakow, Managing Director for NOBLELIFT. “Disaster relief is needed. We cannot help directly to those that need help, but we are happy to help ALAN who does all the hard work with boots on the ground.”

ALAN will be sharing more updates about the continuing impact of this donation in future blogs, newsletter stories and case studies, so stay tuned. In the meantime, if you’d like to read more about the difference pallet jacks and other pieces of MHE can make, check out our blog at https://www.alanaid.org/mhe-myself-and-i/.

*If you’d like to help with the movement of these pallet jacks to their new homes, drop us a line at alanaid.org/contact or see the "Lend A Hand" section above.

IT’S GO: WHERE ALAN IS HEADED SOON

Planning to attend any of the following events? Be sure to look us up, because we’d love to connect with you.

September 13: Presenting: Indiana University Transportation Executive Board Meeting (Bloomington, IN)

September 16-18: Presenting: FMI Supply Chain Forum (Nashville, TN)

September 29-October 2: Attending: CSCMP EDGE (Nashville, TN)

MEME OF THE MONTH

Wherever this is, it looks like the weather over the next week promises to be doggone bad. Happy July from all of us at ALAN.

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