Case Study: Ottawa Cares achieves rapid volunteer deployment and optimized food deliveries with Bloomerang

Using InitLive and MapTag, Ottawa Cares was able to rapidly deploy volunteers for food bank delivery to multiple communities in need

Ottawa Cares is a community-led initiative coordinating COVID-19 food bank and meal deliveries across multiple neighbourhoods. Faced with confusing, time-consuming spreadsheet-based scheduling and no efficient way to create delivery routes, the team needed a volunteer management and routing solution to simplify sign-ups, scheduling changes and route planning. Bloomerang was brought in to address those needs.

Bloomerang deployed a volunteer-management platform integrated with MapTag route optimization and Link2Feed client data to enable self-signup, optimized routes and vehicle-capacity-based hamper planning. The solution let Ottawa Cares scale rapidly—190+ volunteers, 510+ shifts and 15K+ food hampers delivered—filled shifts within hours, saved staff time, onboarded new food banks without extra staff, improved volunteer safety and retention, and increased the number of clients served per shift.

Ottawa Cares

Josh Cassidy

Community Response Coordinator