A couple days ago I walked my dog over to the location where I volunteer on Friday mornings to process donated food and bag it for a GIVE AWAY. There was someone I wanted to talk to. I had never been by there on a Thursday and as it turns out, twice a month the food arrives the day before.
I've decided to call our effort a GIVE AWAY because I saw the delivery and the small amount of storage and realized No, it is not actually a FOOD BANK. Though we do have some canned goods we are processing food the day before or the day of a give away and the rest of the time the space is used for other things. Since I was there, I was asked to help out and basically separated all the things that obviously needed to be put in a refrigerator. Though a small amount of meat and many prepared salads are given, these went in, along with yogurt.
The number one thing that is donated is BREAD - various forms such as sour dough, flatbread, rye, cinnamon swirl, French Loafs, Multigrain, and Tortilla. There is such an abundance of it - and the store is likely taking a tax deduction, so I wonder, if the motivation to donate all that bread - wheat products - is actually the tax deduction. Could the stores really overstock so consistently? Sadly, an overabundance of wheat/bread in the diet leads to excessive calories and a fat belly, but I understand that it would all go into a landfill if it were not distributed. I won't judge it but I'd say most of the people who show up for free food are not very fat.
Anyone who is consistently using free food probably does this but if you're new to it, the idea is to get your free things first and then go shopping for what you still need.
Here is what happens when we volunteers meet on Friday morning. We open all the cardboard boxes and separate out the vegetables, fruits, salads, and other items, on long tables, watching for anything that is rotten. Often there will be a whole bag of something that has been donated because one item inside it has gotten mold or gone bad. Other times it seems something has been thrown in because it was left at a cash register somewhere. All the "bad" stuff goes into a container to be turned into compost for a garden.
It seems that once in a while we get cheeses, more often eggs, sometimes a meat product, such as a ready made meat loaf, or something frozen that can be turned into a meal.
Once our tables are laden with all this, we take plastic bags and fill them, trying to keep heavy things on the bottom and be diverse in what we put in each bag. Sometimes it's kind of fun to think of the person who gets the bag and what a surprise it is for them to see what's in it. I personally try to fill a bag in a way in which a meal makes sense. If I put in tortilla's I'll try for some refried beans, onions, peppers, eggs in the bag too.
Once in a while we get a truly exotic product, and these are also distributed. In the last couple months we have seen gummy bear vitamins, hot sauces, strange teas, fresh ginger.
We know that a person may not like or use everything in their bag. The idea is that they give these things away to friends and neighbors rather than waste them.
When I first started I was startled to see some volunteers taking away a lot of food for themselves and their families. I understand that his is typical however.
Finally, after about two hours of work, the bags are taken outside to tables under a tent and a line up forms. Usually within 15 minutes most of the people who are going to take food have shown up and usually within a half hour it is all gone. We typically make over 50 bags and if the line up looks sparse, we may give out more than one bag per person.
Most of the people who show up are on foot, some with grocery carts, some in cars. When someone drive up in an expensive vehicle I can't help but wonder if they are just taking advantage.
I don't do everything every week. Sometimes I just bag. In the last few weeks I've been taking things to the tables. This week we had so many apples, we gave out whole bags of them to anyone who said they would like them in addition to their grocery bag. We had so much bread, same thing.
At the end of the session, other volunteers take about 10 bags to the closest homeless encampment where people do not wish to leave their tents. We try to be sensitive to the fact that people in these tents cannot cook when we pack their bags. For some of the volunteers this is their reason why they volunteer.
Finally, on a day like we had where we literally had an entire box of apples and dozens of loaves of bread, these are taken to a local rehab or group home.
I like that nothing is wasted.
I believe that Covid-19 economy has a lot to do with what's happening here with food and "Food Insecurity," not having enough food.
There are still people in the hospital with Covid. Our governor has announced there are going to be $50 stipends given to people who get a vaccination and the rest of us are somehow submitted into a lottery for a million bucks.
Wish me luck!
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