Family and Azure Standard have gone hand-in-hand from the beginning, and Kaitlin’s introduction to a healthy, abundant lifestyle was no different. Kaitlin and her husband started living naturally to overcome infertility and start a family, and now they have four children. When Kaitlin developed some health issues after the birth of their fourth child, she turned to her functional nutritionist and friend Bethany, who was also the original drop coordinator for Smyrna, Tennessee. Bethany encouraged Kaitlin to look into using Azure Standard, and though she was initially hesitant to take on one more thing as a busy mom, when she found out that her family’s gluten-free and nutritional needs could be met through the drop, she was fully onboard:
“It was some [gluten-free] grain that I needed. Some random grain that no one’s ever heard of, and if you go to a health food store here, it’s outrageous, it’s so expensive for the smallest little packet. So finally I was like, I’m going to get online and see if Azure has this grain — and what do you know, they sell it in five pound bags for the same price as the grocery store’s twelve ounces. I sat down one night, and I priced out Walmart, Costco, and Azure for all the main stuff we buy (this was in 2019) and Azure was the cheapest I would say in about two-thirds of the staples we were getting on a regular basis. So that was enough to be like, okay, we’re switching!
“So I signed up and just joined as a member, back when it was really small, and within the year Bethany moved to the Colombia area, and David gave her drop coordinator [role] to me, so I became the drop coordinator of an already established drop. There were ten or twelve people, and it was the same every month… and in 2021, 2022, it exploded! I get emails now that a new customer has joined our drop — I get five or six a month on average, sometimes more! So our drop just gets bigger and bigger all the time.”
Because Kaitlin inherited the drop from Bethany, her process of becoming a drop coordinator was super easy: “For me, it just kind of fell into my lap! I didn’t have to do what most people do, to find a place and choose [one] — because you want to be on a route they’re already on to save money — I didn’t have to do any of that, I just took it over! I just got control of the GroupMe. She called Azure and switched, and I called them and got the lowdown from them and had a long conversation to learn how to do it… Bethany started the GroupMe, so she was able to announce that she was leaving and I was taking over.”
The drop that began as just a dozen customers has expanded to about thirty in just a few years. At first, drop members delivered each person’s packages by calling out their name, but eventually more members meant an organizational adjustment — Kaitlin now places alphabet signs near the truck, and she and the drop members stack packages by their names. Knowing that people come to Azure from all walks of life, she makes sure only those who are able to, help unload the truck, and then circle back when they receive their packages.
“Now I ask that everyone — once they have their packages counted — check in with me and tell me how many they have. Because if they tell me they’re missing one, I might have already heard from somebody else that says, “We have this random extra one that doesn’t belong to us.” I’m already keeping my ears out for everything, and going, ‘Hey, I think you two got the wrong ones, why don’t you two switch?’ It’s been helpful to have everyone check in — people go home with a lot more of their stuff.”
Thankfully, the larger number of people has not stifled the blossoming community found at the drop. Since Kaitlin is great at remembering names and details, she often connects drop members in similar stages of life and with similar interests: “I’m connecting people all the time. I’ll meet someone who has some sort of interest, and I’ll remember someone I met [with the same interest] from two years ago, and go, ‘Oh, do you know so-and-so? I’m gonna text you!’ And I’ll text them their numbers. Even though maybe I’m not the right person to welcome you to this town… I can connect the two of you and send you on your way.
“There’s so many like-minded people at Azure — lots of homeschooling families, lots of moms really invested in knowing what their kids [eat], where their food is coming from and growing their own things. It’s a really great place, I think, for people to meet each other. When you get to the drop and you pull up and there’s all these vans full of kids, you know they’re homeschooled because it’s a Tuesday morning! And so I have loved to see some of the connections that people have made just from the drop.”
Kaitlin loves how Azure helps her afford healthy food for her family and creates a community centered on health and abundance. It has even helped her teach her children valuable life lessons such as a can-do attitude. “For us — for our family, obviously we’ve saved money. We aren’t intimidated by different gluten-free recipes because we have [Azure] stuff stored up. So many times you have a blog that’s gluten-free and it’s things you’ve never heard of, and it’s fine! I have a whole pantry stocked with xanthum gum, millet, buckwheat and sorghum, and we can do it! It empowers us — even my kids can look at a complicated gluten-free recipe and go, ‘The pantry’s stocked, I can make this, I can do this!’ And we would not be able to do that without Azure, because the grocery stores don’t have it or we wouldn’t be able to buy it. I mean, we’re a single-income family of six living in Middle Tennessee, we would not be able to buy [all this if not for Azure].
“And then, community-wise, I just love some of the connections I’ve made, just some of the people I’ve met. It’s a different connection point than church or baseball, you know… it’s you guys! I would have never met your dad who lives just down the road from us. We have so much in common… I would have never met people who live right here in my community if it hadn’t been for [the drop]. I love that… so I’ve shared it in different homeschool groups or different book clubs I’m in — you know, when you see someone who’s like-minded, you see someone at the raw milk pickup — ‘You need to join Azure!’”
Kaitlin’s Favorite Azure Products
Sweet Creek Foods Organic Sweet Pickle Relish (CO353)
Jovial Foods Organic Gluten Free Brown Rice Pasta Shells (PA494)
SnoPac Frozen Organic Southern Style Hashbrowns (FG203)
SnoPac Organic Frozen Cottage Fries (FG910)
All Azure’s gluten free grains!
Drop Coordinator Tips from Kaitlin!
- Have all drop members join a group chat (such as GroupMe) to connect with one another. If someone can’t make it to the drop, they can ask the other members if someone can pick up their items for them. This helps the drop coordinator avoid becoming the middle man and encourages community amongst the drop members.
- Streamline the welcome email so it can be copy/pasted and sent to each new member. Have a master document or screenshot of answers to basic drop questions (a common one is “where is the drop?”) so you can quickly respond to new members without having to type out the same replies over and over again.
- At the bottom of your email, include a gentle reminder that you are a volunteer, and because you have your own healthy lifestyle to attend to, you won’t be available all the time.
- Remember that Azure has your back if any problems arise — Kaitlin says that each time she has talked to the team about an issue, “they have been one hundred percent supportive of me not wasting my time, not getting taken advantage of, and [advocating that] members have to maintain the standard!”