When it comes to meals and delivery, a tech company isn’t usually what comes to mind. Lumentum is a high tech company based out of San Jose, California, and has an office in Ottawa. This office mostly focuses on research and development, but also has sales, customer service, and legal departments. Lumentum has been in Ottawa for over 30 years, and focuses on fibre optics, telecom, 3D sensors, and more. So what does any of this have to do with food and meal deliveries with Shelter Movers?
How The Shutdown Lead to Shelter Movers
When the government first announced closures in March 2020, Lumentum went into a shutdown period.They reduced their in-house staff (only essential personnel), from their typical 400-450 to only 40 – 50 in the building at any given time.
The on-site cafeteria, however, remained open to support the staff in the building. This left a huge unused capacity. So they started thinking that with the shutdown around the City of Ottawa there was a lot of need. Initially, they looked into supporting front line workers, however, there was already a lot of support in place to support them. Then, they learned that places such as women’s and children’s shelters were seeing an increased demand in their services and capacity.
They connected with Chrysalis, Interval, and Nelson house (among others) and found that they definitely had a need for any meals that could be provided and delivered. These are partners who already work with Shelter Movers Ottawa who mentioned the services SMO currently provides such as moving and relocated. Through these discussions, the formed the logistical processes to deliver the meals to our community partners.Â
Lumentum and Shelter Movers Ottawa have been working together since mid-April 2020. Since that time, Lumentum has delivered over 17,000 meals, of which Shelter Movers Ottawa has delivered approximately 7000.
Who We Serve
While Shelter Movers Ottawa serves and delivers to our community partners like Chrysalis House, Interval House, and Nelson House – Lumentum delivers to other shelters as well as Kemptville District Hospital for nurses in the Covid ward, Cornerstone, and Starwood.
Keith Aguinaga, the Senior Director of Global Customer Service in Ottawa, mentioned that this is one of the projects he’s most proud of. It has been a huge success – and Shelter Movers has been able to fill the gap for distribution.
While they haven’t looked past plans for continuation past the lockdown just yet, Lumentum also contributes to shelters financially, and believes they’ve created a long term relationship and sees opportunities for support moving forward.
Learn More About Lumentum
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