There continues to be a global need for vaccinations, and in 2018 and an estimated 19.4 million people did not receive the immunization they needed for preventable diseases. Disease prevention is essential because it helps to alleviate the physical and economic cost of contracting the disease. Also, researchers have argued that vaccines provide more than just monetary value to a country; they can help provide other benefits such as reducing co-morbidity, increasing community-based health benefits, and an increase in social equity1. Although everyone should be vaccinated, the target audience for this intervention will be prenatal or postpartum women. One of the issues for vaccinations at this time is the perception of who is providing the immunization. The WHO defines this as vaccine hesitancy is a “…delay in acceptance or refusal of vaccines despite vaccination services availability.” Several reasons can cause this, and in the United States, people need to believe in both the government and the pharmaceutical companies. There is a level of distrust because people do not believe their motives2. One of the areas of improvement can be to help increase the level of trust in vaccinations.

One of the immunization program’s strengths is that leading medical professionals and global organizations want to increase the number of people taking vaccines. For example, it is part of the Healthy People 2020 initiative and has immunizations as one of its priorities. Also, researchers have found that education will increase the likelihood of someone receiving a vaccine. One of the program’s weaknesses is that we will need to have continuous funding since we will be limited in the amount of revenue we can generate. One of the continued threats, as mentioned before, are people who have vaccine hesitancy. As people continue to have information through social media and other sources, this number may continue to grow2. One of the growth opportunities is to expand the program to adult vaccines as well. This program starts by focusing on babies, but adults need vaccinations as well, including things such as the flu. For this program to be successful, we will need our director, our board, and the health educators and volunteers to work directly with the community to provide information.

Research and Development are important to our company because we want to ensure we use the most up to date information about vaccines. Although we are not providing research or developing vaccinations, we follow the developments as they occur from different drug companies and the government. We want to ensure we are compliant and follow the correct schedule, which is why we partner with organizations like the Forsyth County Department of Health or the North Carolina Department of Health. For example, there were two new vaccine requirements in North Carolina for students this year3. Our organization will make sure we have this information, so we are providing accurate information. We will also make sure we are up to date about the current details on immunizations’ effectiveness. We will continuously be updating our educational materials to reflect changes in science and government policies. One potential issue for this is the transparency from pharmaceutical companies, because we want to make sure we are providing valid, factual information. However, we are relying on a private company to give information, which can be problematic if they do not freely share that information. Although we will not be conducting what some would consider traditional Research and Development, we still want to ensure we stay abreast of what is occurring in our industry. Making sure we stay abreast of the current trends within the industry will allow us to remain competitive.

Refrences:

1. Bloom D, Brenzel L, Cadarette D, Sullivan J. Moving beyond traditional valuation of vaccination: Needs and opportunities. Vaccine. 2017;35:A29-A35. doi:10.1016/j.vaccine.2016.12.001

2. Jamison A, Quinn S, Freimuth V. “You don’t trust a government vaccine”: Narratives of institutional trust and influenza vaccination among African American and white adults. Soc Sci Med. 2019;221:87-94. doi:10.1016/j.socscimed.2018.12.020

3. Branch N. NC DPH, WCH: Immunization: Schools and Childcare Facilities. Immunize.nc.gov. https://www.immunize.nc.gov/schools/k-12.htm. Published 2020. Accessed September 8, 2020.

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Section Five

HUMAN RESOURCE & MARKET ANALYSIS

• Global/National Trends:

• Key developments that ensure a need for our services:
  • A six month study shows the unemployment rate for Warren County Virginia has fluctuated quite a bit according to Homefacts[i].
  • With such a volatile market and a high national percentage, it is reasonable to believe food insecurity is a real struggle for many Virginian’s.
• Warren County, VA Current Unemployment – 7.8%
• Warren County, VA Unemployment Rate
• Social and political environments are calling for American’s to help one another. The time is right to ask residents, churches, and businesses to financially support the endeavours of Soul Food Kitchen to feed and nutritionally educate those in need in our community.
• Target markets and key customers:

• Local small business will be targets of support through marketing flyers and financial donations
• Local major corporations will be targeted to support the need of disposable service ware, as well as food donations
• Local church ministries will be targeted to volunteer their service efforts, as well as to collect non-perishable food items
• The residents of Warren county who are hungry, in need of a hand up, and looking for ways they can feed their families affordable healthy meals will be the target clients of Soul Food Kitchen.

• There is no local competition- Soul Food Kitchen will be the only year-round soup kitchen and food pantry available to the community.
• S- The strengths of the endeavour of Soul Food Kitchen is found in the support of the community. This is a proud community that shines brightest when times are hard. We enjoy seeing local small businesses thrive and have multiple marketing avenues created just for the purpose of marketing for local small businesses.
• W-The future could hold anticipated weakness if the unemployment numbers rise higher and faster than currently trending.Utilizing our resources wisely, to save for that risk will be essential to the long-term success of Soul Food Kitchen.
• O-The opportunity to expand our program to summer education classes for the teens in the area exists.We can hire local teachers who are already off during the summer to create and execute a summer learning program down the road.As that program succeeds, we can later expand it to include primary and secondary school children and teachers a well.
• T-The threats to Soul Food Kitchen are: low food donations, low monetary donations, too few volunteers and lack of food handling experience or certifications.To mitigate these threats it will be important to save like a prince, but spend like a pauper. We will need to ensure we make donating to our 501c3 organization a priority for everyone, and spend those funds thriftily, to make sure we can support the Soul Food Kitchen mission for the long haul. Proverbs 21:20 ESV “Precious treasure and oil are in a wise man’s dwelling, but a foolish man devours it.”

Section Six

RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT

• Sources of R&D
• Current research & development has included modelling a long-term solution to a long-term need, currently being addressed in part on a short-term basis by our local Cold Weather Shelter program. Our Cold Weather Shelter program currently feeds Warren county residents in need of assistance a hot meal during the cold months.In addition, they provide them a warm place to stay the night on a rotation with the local churches and then a sack breakfast and a sack lunch for them to take with them when they leave in the morning.
• Expanding the Cold Weather Shelter program to 12 months a year, limiting services to nutrition and education will allow us to partner with the team at Cold Weather Shelter for the sustainability of our Warren county residents in need.
• Current and planned
• Intellectual Property Protection
• We will not hold or apply for any patents

In addition, 3 hot meals a day, along with some food for their soul with prayer and guidance will help them mentally to stay out of the depths of despair.

John 6:50-71 ESV “This is the bread that comes down from heaven, so that one may eat of it and not die. I am the living bread that came down from heaven. If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever. And the bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh.” The Jews then disputed among themselves, saying, “How can this man give us his flesh to eat?” So Jesus said to them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you. Whoever feeds on my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day.”

We are currently researching the best way to present the educational opportunities on Saturday’s.In the future we would like to offer opportunities to take the group shopping in the store, where they can make choices and learn about seasonal fruits and vegetables.

• Future planning and ongoing innovation
• We are hoping to expand our education department to include summer learning opportunities for teens.The goal would be to help teens learn about food in a body positive manner, to help mitigate any eating disorders teens 16-20[ii] are susceptible to. Eventually, recruiting teachers from the primary and secondary schools to create learning material age appropriate for elementary and middle school ages as we grow.
• We will need to recruit summer program teachers and staff and apply for grants to fund the program each summer.
• Hiring a grant writer will be critical to the long-term success of the program’s evolution.

[i] https://www.homefacts.com/unemployment/Virginia/Wa…

[ii] Bould H, De Stavola B, Magnusson C, et al. The influence of school on whether girls develop eating disorders. International journal of epidemiology. 2016;45:480-488.