As I was saying this morning, I went to the St Francis Food Pantry last night to how things work there and ask where they get the food from that they need and Minette was kind enough to show me around. The process there is pretty simple. First timers get taken into the office to register and get a card that authorizes you to "shop" there once a week. Those who already have a card stand in line and wait for their turn. The first step is to sign-in for your shopping. You present your card and let them know how many you have in the household: adults and children.
Next, you take a cart and start shopping. First is the produce room. Right now, there are a lot of potatoes and fresh tomatoes in there. There are also bags of produce that have been removed from the shelves at the local grocery stores. Volunteers go to the stores daily and get the day old bakery and deli products and the produce that is set aside to be destroyed (aka. reclaimed food.) Some of the produce comes from Feed My People Foodbank. They get food in huge quantities and supply a 14-county area. The food shelters and other organizations under the FMP umbrella fill out an order online and it gets delivered to them. http://www.fmpfoodbank.org/order_form.phtml St Francis Food Pantry usually receives trucks from FMP Foodbank four times a week.
In the next room, you will find the rest of the groceries. There is a cooler with reclaimed dairy, the day-old bakery stuff as well as other bread, and a lot of different groceries--canned fruits and vegees, crackers, cereal, etc. Some is limited to only one per family because of cost or quantity, but if there is a lot of something, there isn't a limit. The limits are marked on the shelves.
The groceries are a mix of new and reclaimed. There are single donations, government commodities, and some canned goods and boxes of food that are purchased from Feed My People. And there is the reclaimed food from the stores. This is food that the store would have thrown away because the can is dented, the label is bad, or the item is expired. Before you freak out about expired food, have I got a website for you to check out! http://stilltasty.com/ Seriously...before you throw something away because you think it is too old to be healthy, check the item against the website. You could save a ton in groceries!
The final stop is the scale in front of the freezers. In these freezers is the frozen meat--often commodity. The choice this week is ham slices or pork patties. They also have farm fresh eggs available thanks to some fantastic area chicken farmers! They weigh the food to keep track of how much goes out and that's it. You are on your way. They recommend that you bring your own box or bags to pack up the food--I noticed a lot of clients using laundry hampers and hard plastic crates when I was there.
The St Francis Food Pantry has a staff of only three with two senior aides. Other than that, the rest of the help sorting groceries, stocking shelves and helping people with their week's groceries is all done by volunteers. They are a great group of people; and if you ever need them, they will treat you well.
No comments:
Post a Comment