SuiteWorld Attendees Pack 86,000+ Meals for Children in the Developing World

For those of us who don’t have to think twice about whether we’ll have enough food to eat, it’s hard to imagine that an estimated one in nine people on the planet go to bed hungry each night.

During SuiteWorld, NetSuite’s annual customer conference held at the San Jose Convention Center, attendees came together to ‘make good happen’ by packing meals on behalf of NetSuite customer and nonprofit partner Stop Hunger Now (SHN). Driven by a bold vision for a world without hunger, SHN works with corporate partners and volunteers to pack and deliver meals, vitamins, and medical supplies to the world’s most vulnerable, whether they are living in South Africa, Central America or the Philippines.

In between the busy-ness of attending keynotes, breakout sessions and networking events at the San Jose Convention Center, attendees threw on a hairnet to see how many meals they could pack during their 30-minute volunteer slot.

Chris Romero, Stop Hunger Now's Northern California program manager, said it's an approach that has worked wonders for the organization, which regularly marshals the volunteers it needs by setting up shop at conferences, at corporate team-building events, or even on college campuses.

"It needs to be easy, and it needs to be high-impact," Romero said.

Mission accomplished.

You could feel a sense of friendly competition among the participants and many who participated came back each day to pack a few more meals and help us meet and exceed our target!

“The Stop Hunger Now activity was a great project and successful on a number of levels,” said Valerie Steele, Senior Director, Technical Publications & SuiteAnswers at NetSuite. “First, we surpassed our 50K meal goal by over 70 percent to help hungry children around the world! Second, it was a great hands-on activity – a good complement to all of the sitting and eating one does at a conference. And third, it brought NetSuite folks and customers together for an important cause.”

Marina Zago, Senior Director of the Global Solution Developer Group at NetSuite said, “The energy at the event was infectious.  My team adjusted the packing process as to make our time most efficient and I’m happy to say that in the hour I spent packing food, my team was responsible for packing almost 2500 meals…so proud.  What a great additional to all the goings-on at SuiteWorld!”

At the end of the three days, more than 600 attendees had packed 86,832 meals which will be delivered to organizations serving youth in the developing world.

“It was wonderful to see attendees come together to support Stop Hunger Now’s work to end hunger,” said Erin Dieterich, Director of Corporate Citizenship at NetSuite. “Even more exciting is seeing how our software donation, plus volunteerism, is helping with all phases of the organization’s work, from preparing meals locally to efficient distribution globally.”

The event with SHN was an initiative of NetSuite.org, NetSuite’s Corporate Citizenship arm that supports the success of nonprofits and social enterprises with technology and volunteers. To learn more about SHN’s program and how you can get involved, go to www.stophungernow.org.