Shopping at St Francis Food Pantry

Saturday, I went to the food pantry for the first time as a guest.  The amount I would get on SNAP is not enough to eat healthy, so I decided to augment that with visits to the food pantry.  The director at the pantry knows about my challenge and has encouraged me to visit as a guest to be able to see how a food pantry can help food insecure families.

St Francis is open from 11:00 'til 1:00 on Saturday, and I thought if I got there about halfway through I wouldn't have to stand in line long.  Boy was I wrong!  The line was out to the street and a lot of people were standing in the chilly wind waiting for their chance to get into the building.  They allow only six people in at a time to avoid the pushing and crowding and to make the shopping more efficient.  The line was so long that an hour went by before I was let into the building for my turn.

The first thing you do when you get into the pantry is sign in.  If you already have a card, you present it.  Otherwise, they have you fill out a registration form so they can log you into the computer and issue you a card.  It was my first time and there was still a substantial line outside, so she asked for a photo ID and told me what to bring the next time I came so I can register then.  I was given a slip of paper with my name and the number of adults and children in my household and what number of guest I was for the day.  I was the 74th family served, and there were many more families waiting outside in the cold.

Then the "shopping" begins.  Having volunteered the day before, I had an idea of some of the produce that had come through, but by the time I got there it was pretty slim pickings.  There were a lot of tomatoes and they were unlimited, but I took only five.  I didn't want them to spoil.  I got a couple of ratty looking green peppers that I can put into a curry; two green chili peppers and two habaneros for my chili; a bag of lettuce that was a day past its expiration, some overgrown cucumbers and a head of radicchio that would be fine once I peeled off the outer leaves for a salad and a lot of blueberries for my fresh fruit.

For the rest, I got some canned carrots to add to soups and stews, a loaf of bakery bread, some baking powder biscuits, a can of water chestnuts and bamboo shoots, a pound of rice, a pound of dry kidney beans, some canned spaghetti sauce, and a can of pumpkin.  I also got two small bottles of milk, a dozen eggs, a bottle of grapefruit juice and a two-pound package of ham. 

The food will surely supplement my SNAP allotment, but I'm thinking that a person would be better off going to the pantry before doing their actual grocery shopping for the week.  You don't know what you are going to find at the pantry on any given visit, and that way you could spend your foodshare dollars on healthier options instead of just cheap, filling food and would be able to take advantage of the weekly store ads.