FirstLink Logs Record-Breaking Call Volume

COLUMBUS, Ohio—A local nonprofit organization experienced tremendous call volume during 2008.

FirstLink experienced a record-breaking fiscal year—in terms of call volume. 

The agency told NBC 4‘s Mikaela Hunt their call volume easily surpassed 300,000 for the first time. 

The agency continued crunching numbers for fiscal year 2008 for Friday, but Hunt already has a breakdown of the calls it’s received through June of 2008: 
- The Linden and East Columbus area, including South Linden, North Linden, Easton and the airport, made up 12.7 percent with 46,604 calls.
- The Hilltop, or east of Wilson Road, made 45,050 calls or equaled 12.3 percent of call volume.
- The near East Side, including Olde Town East, King-Lincoln, made 39,073 calls or constituted 10.7 percent of call volume.
- Not far behind was the number of callers from Southland, Bexley, Whitehall, Eastland, Reynoldsburg and the near South Side.

Many of the people who called through June were females between the ages of 18 and 59.

More than 40 percent of callers for either referral services or food described themselves as having no income.

“We have people calling in every day on the food lines, needing to make appointments with food pantries, saying I used to be donating to the pantries, now I’m going,“ said Jan Leibovitz Alloy, of FirstLink.

With so much demand, resources are strapped in Central Ohio, and FirstLink is looking for more partnerships and volunteers to help take phone calls.

Anyone interesting in volunteering can call 211.

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