Seeing is Believing                    

    Most of Trusted World’s operations are behind the scenes providing quality resources and technology, empowering its partners, which are schools, nonprofits, and law enforcement agencies.

    When volunteers and others tour the facility, something special happens. Many wonder why such a platform and process doesn’t already exist, yet others are inspired, wanting to help make a difference by embracing Trusted World’s motto of ‘Helping people help people.’ 

   “It’s got QR codes and tracking and 48 hours, and they have to go through the partners. I was explaining it to my mom, and she was like, wait. What? Slow down!.” Sheena Sharapata lights up when talking about her recent tour of Trusted World. “How can something so great be in our city, and we not even know about it.”   

  Only two months ago, the marketing professional at Planet Ford 635 in Garland learned about the organization that provides quality, size-specific resources to more than 800 North Texas Partners within 48 hours and at no cost. 

  Sharapata says, “I’m really excited about this because it’s something you haven’t seen before.” She says, “to come in and actually see the size and the donations and what’s coming in and the processes that are in place and to actually see the software that’s been developed and you see the clothing, you see the food, you see the system and that 48-hour mark. You know that what you guys are doing is a good thing.”

   Trusted World’s mission of addressing situational poverty by providing clothing, food, and toiletries to individuals and entire families resonates with Sharapata. 

“When the counselor goes in and puts the student who needs help, the whole family is addressed. This is inspiring, and it just motivated me.” So moved by the experience, Sharapata is organizing a Trusted World fundraiser in October. “We’re actually going to be at Ford’s Garage in Plano, and we’re teaming up with the Texas Cobra Club and the Shelby Cobra Association of Texas, and we’re going to have Michael (Trusted World Founder & CEO) there to give a little speech on the mission of Trusted World and how Companies can get more involved. Everyone who attends can bring food or clothing.”

Eye on Efficiency and Impact

   Technology, collaboration, efficiencies, and partner impact drive the Trusted World platform, but the organization always looks to make logistical tweaks to increase efficiency. 

    “This is the pickroom; whoever is picking will pick it here in this room,” says David Garrett, Trusted World’s Operations Supervisor. He talks about how the organization provides such quality resources to its hundreds of North Texas partners. Garrett says, “As you can see, we have bins for just about every style or division of clothing you can think of. Even though we have so many bins, we are still running out of space. We need more space. With the way our room is laid out currently, we’ve been able to pick over 200 orders in a day. That’s our record, but we have a plan to pick more orders and fulfill more needs and to take care of our 800 partners.”

   “This room is our plan.” Garrett Says, “Currently, it’s being used as a temporary storage, but we’re going to convert this into a new pick room so we can have two pick rooms. This room is going to be dedicated just to the boy’s and men’s clothes. That way, we can have pickers focused just on boys’ and mens’ clothes as well as pickers focused just on girls, and women’s, and baby clothes. This room is going to allow us to be that much more efficient in how we pick orders and just pick that many more orders.”

   Trusted World already has the supplies to build the shelving, and they’re hoping to have the new pick room ready by the start of the school year in mid-August.

Make a Difference

   If you’d like to help make a difference, go to TrustedWorld.org, click on volunteer experiences, and sign up. If you’d like to explore other ways to help, you can go to the same website, and under the ways to give link, click on needs to find the items the Network most needs. For clothing donations, one of our key sponsors, the Credit Union of Texas, has donation dropoff bins in every one of their North Texas branches. Next to the bin is a banner with a QR code if you want to donate money.

    You’ll find a complete list of dropoff bin locations on the Trusted World website. 

   That’s the headlines from around the Trusted World Network, where you can join us in helping people help people.