Marisol V.
Executive Director
Started here in the pantry on a Tuesday in 2009 and never left.
About us
A small organization that has been on the same street for a long time.
Riverbend Community Alliance is four staff, a working board and roughly two hundred volunteers. We do not run a national campaign or a call center. We run a pantry, a tutoring room, a garden and a visiting program, all inside Willow Creek Falls.
Our mission
No one in Willow Creek Falls should go hungry, fall behind at school or spend a week without a friendly face at the door.
We hold to three rules. Help is offered without a means test, because dignity is cheaper than administration. Programs run on a schedule people can memorize, because unpredictable help is barely help. And whatever we cannot do, we say so out loud and point at somebody who can.
How we got here
Seventeen years, five turning points.
2009
One folding table
Eleven neighbors started handing out grocery boxes on Tuesday nights in a church basement on Water Street.
2013
The Main Street building
A landlord offered the empty storefront at a rent we could cover. The pantry moved in and stayed open five days a week.
2016
Tutoring starts
Two retired teachers asked for a quiet room and four folding chairs. Nineteen students finished the first year.
2020
Curbside and calls
The pantry went to the sidewalk and the visiting program went to the phone. Neither one closed for a single week.
2023
The garden opens
The vacant lot at Mill and Water became eighty raised beds, six of them built at wheelchair height.
Who you will meet
Staff and board.
Names below are placeholders. Put your real team here, with a photo each if you have one.
Staff
Dwayne P.
Programs Manager
Runs the pantry and knows every regular by name.
Hannah K.
Tutoring Coordinator
Former middle school teacher, still grades in red pen.
Theo A.
Garden Lead
Keeps eighty plots watered and settles the tomato disputes.
Board of directors
- Renata C., Board Chair
- Sam O., Treasurer
- Priya N., Secretary
- Lou B., Board Member
- Aisha M., Board Member
- Gregor T., Board Member
The board meets on the second Monday of each month at 6:30 PM at 123 Main Street. Meetings are open to the public and there is always coffee.
Where the money goes
You can read every number.
This paragraph is a placeholder, so replace it with your own figures. In a typical year roughly 84 cents of every dollar goes straight into programs, 10 cents to keeping the building open and 6 cents to fundraising. We are a 501(c)(3) nonprofit, placeholder status, EIN 00-0000000, and our fiscal year runs July 1 to June 30. Books are reviewed by an independent accountant every year and the board approves the budget in open session.
If a number on this page does not make sense to you, call (555) 555-0123 and ask. Somebody will walk you through it line by line.
Come see it on a Tuesday.
The pantry is busiest and the building is at its best. Ask at the desk for whoever is on shift and they will show you around.