Posts filed under ‘At the Food Bank’
Wonderful Day at the Food Bank
Regular visitors to this site know that I spend a good part of the day on Friday volunteering at my local food bank.
Two weeks ago (we were closed last Friday due to a huge snow storm) the shelves were literally almost bare. We’d gone through the thousands of pounds of food donations we got in November and December, when everyone’s heart grows a few sizes and people think of the needy. We were experiencing the post-holiday dregs. I mean, we were out of things like spaghetti sauce and green beans and kidney beans for God’s sake…things I’d never seen us go without in the three years I’ve been there.
Today it was like Christmas all over again. A local elementary school had held a food drive and we were loaded with all kinds of pastas and spaghetti sauces and soups and baking supplies. Today, we brought in another 1,400 pounds of food from yet another school’s food drive and our clients were able to pick from such “unusual” items as salad dressing and tartar sauce — real treats for them.
Now we’re brimming with canned vegetables and canned fruit and rice dishes and a huge organic food section. Oh, and coffee! We have coffee!
It’s heartbreaking taking people through the food bank when we’re down to the bare bones. They are down to the bare bones in their lives already so when a day like today rolls around, it’s magic when a young mom squeal at the sight of penne pasta instead of spaghetti. Or a 70-ish grandma sighs and smiles at a bottle of soy sauce or, as I said, tartar sauce or A-1 sauce. Total luxuries in their world.
So, it was a good day.
Little Girl Donates $30 in Birthday Money to Food Bank
I just got an email from the Emergency Family Assistance Association, the food bank where I volunteer.
They recently received a card containing $30 from a little girl:
Dear EFAA, I collected this money at my birthday party. Please use it to help needy families. From, Kira B.
Thank. You. Kira!
Don’t Like Citizens United? Turn the TV Off
Antonin Scalia is a simple-minded asshat unworthy of the position he’s in:
Photo: Adm Golub / The San Francisco Chronicle
COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) — U.S. Supreme Court justice Antonin Scalia has a simple solution for people who don’t like all the political advertisements unleashed by the court’s decision two years ago that ended limits on corporate contributions in political campaigns – change the channel or turn off the TV.
Scalia was asked about the [Citizens United] decision during a presentation before the South Carolina Bar on Saturday, exactly two years after the court handed down the 5-4 decision in the case that led to the rise of Super PACs. They are outside groups affiliated with candidates that can take in unlimited contributions as long as they don’t directly coordinate with the candidate.
“I don’t care who is doing the speech – the more the merrier,” Scalia said. “People are not stupid. If they don’t like it, they’ll shut it off.”
Yo Tony, people are stupid. They don’t turn their TV off. They watch and they get brainwashed.
(Hear me screaming now?)
I’m going to bed. I’m walking people through a food bank tomorrow.
Good Day at the Food Bank
Just got home from my usual Friday morning at the food bank.
It was a fairly uneventful morning but it was good. We had four volunteers (the minimum required to “walk” people through while simultaneously keeping the shelves stocked) and we gave food to approximately 20 families (including one family of 12).
The best part was that aside for spaghetti noodles and spaghetti sauce, the shelves were full. The donations we received between Thanksgiving and Christmas are serving us well. Unfortunately, people generally don’t think about donating to food banks between January and November. While things look good now, it won’t be long (two or three weeks) before we’re again struggling to provide the basic basics, like canned beans and tuna.
So many days are really dreary but when the shelves are full, it’s a good day. And today was a good day.
Fun Day at the Food Bank
Regulars to this site know I volunteer at my local food bank every Friday. They’ve heard me moan about bare shelves and nothing much more to offer but tuna and beans. I know it’s oxymoronic to use the words fun and food bank in the same sentence but today was such a fun day there, despite the sad fact that we need food banks to begin with and that their clientele is growing almost by the day.
But this time of year people grow a heart; they go out and volunteer and collect food and donate money. Today we had a whole bunch of volunteers from various businesses around town who are either encouraged or required by their employees to do something for the community this time of year.
I ended up teaming with two people from a “wealth management firm” (needless to say, working at the food bank, even for four hours, was like being on another planet for them). We loaded ourselves into one of their vehicles (a big SUV) and went to Costco and King Soopers, the local grocery chain in the Denver area. At Costco we bought roughly 13 8-packs of refried beans; 40 43-pack cases of ramen (15c each — not bad!), and two boxes of eggs containing something like 24 dozen eggs each.
At King Soopers we bought 60 jars of baby food (49c each); 36 cans of spaghetti sauce (79c), 66 boxes of generic raisin bran (99c each), and about 70 cans of pork and beans and 20 packs of margarine (butter was too expensive) containing four sticks each.
(All the food was paid for by food bank donations.)
Every inch of the car — except where the three of us sat — was packed. If we’d been rear-ended, those ramens and that cereal would have saved our lives!
When we got back to the food bank, we had fun putting some of the food on the shelves and storing some in the basement, to be brought up as needed. While we were gone, a load of bread arrived. We had plenty of milk and meat and veggies and fruit and yogurt, little cakes and cupcakes and even some candy.
Nothing is more depressing than June or July at a food bank. People are off on vacation, the farmers haven’t yet begun to donate fruits and vegetables from their gardens and nobody’s thinking about hungry people. It’s just awful to take clients through and have, again, not much more than tuna and beans to offer. But today, ah, today we had plenty of food — and lots of variety — so it was a joy to welcome people in.
I mean, everyone needs a little joy in their life — even poor people.
$200,000+ For…a Purse
$203,150 purse: Hermes Bag Sells for What?!
File this one under, “what lousy economy?” Earlier this week, an anonymous collector shelled out $203,150 for a purse.
Sold at the Heritage Auction house in Dallas, the purse is a Red Hermès crocodile Birkin-style handbag, with “hardware” – that is, the buckles, clasps and so on – made from solid 18-karat white gold and diamonds. The 30 cm tote is a world record setter for the most expensive purse ever sold at a public auction.
I suppose all things are relative, just like they say. If you have millions of dollars to your name, spending $203,150 on a purse isn’t all that big a deal. But as a food bank volunteer I know what it’s like to have the rare batch of fresh blueberries or day-old coffee cake to offer clients — whose budgets are stretched so thin those are unaffordable items — and who are accustomed to not-much-more than tuna and canned beans week after week. So, from where I sit, nothing better illustrates the chasm that exists amongst the people in our society than this.
Sad Day at the Food Bank Today
When I volunteered at my local food bank last year on the Friday before Thanksgiving, we had a frozen turkey for everyone, and the volunteers had been handing them out all week. Today we had a total of seven.
Yes, more may come in next week but what a stark difference. It’s sad and worrisome. So is this:
Community Food Share’s “Let’s Bag Hunger” food drive brought in 6,458 pounds of food Thursday, bringing the cumulative total to 26,436 pounds.
That’s more than 15,000 pounds short of the 41,588 pounds that had been collected at this point in the campaign last year.
The drive also has brought in $885 so far toward its goal of $20,000.
The organization provides food for more than 60 groups in Boulder and Broomfield counties. To participate, drop donations off at grocery stores around Boulder County. The food drive ends Wednesday.
I’m stunned.
More On Those Lazy, Freeloading Poor People
The cons want us to believe poor people are just lazy freeloaders who mooch off of society (sounds like Wall Street bankers to me).
Well get a load of this tear jerking entry the folks at the Emergency Family Assistance Association — the food bank were I volunteer — just posted on their Facebook page:
I know it’s hard to read (see the original at the link above):
Two one dollar bills arrived in the mail with a hand written note explaining the giver was a low income resident without a car but wanted to share what she could.
Lazy freeloaders huh? I send a virtual hug out to this woman, whoever she is.
Pinching Pennies at the Food Bank
Well, it’s Friday so that means I spent most of the day volunteering at my local food bank.
As I’ve reported over the last few weeks, the shelves are almost bare of the basic foodstuffs we’ve historically (I’ve volunteered there for almost three years) had plenty of, like canned beans, canned chili, tuna and canned fruit and veggies. According to the food bank manager, there is just a huge nation-wide demand for food that goes to food banks right now, so here we are.
Not only that, the price of some staples, particularly peanut butter, has increased roughly 30% in just the last few weeks so even things that some food banks bought locally are unaffordable now.
That said, one of the chores I did today was to go to the local grocery store to buy a few things — but as many of each of them as I could find. The first item was cereal, preferably raisin bran, and I couldn’t spend more than 99c per box. Yippee, I found some at that price but, drat, they only had about 30 boxes. I bought all of them. They’ll last about two days.
The second thing I needed was canned beans — anything but pork ‘n beans, which we had a few cases of — and I couldn’t spend more than 68c per can. Yippee on that score too! I found some kidney beans and some “white beans” for 69c each. Yeah, it was a penny over but I cleaned them out of that too. I probably bought 90 cans.
Then is was on to that old college friend, ramen. I was supposed to keep that to 17c each but the store was selling them for 20c. Screw that. I made an executive decision to go ahead and “splurge” and I bought six 24-count boxes.
All in all I spent just over $100.00.
Imagine going to the store and having those kind of restrictions on your spending and on your selection. I tell you, it’s been a real eye opener for me.
Anyway, after filling my trunk, driving back to the food bank, unloading the trunk and putting the food on the shelves, the place looked a little better but again, it won’t last. And it is so heartbreaking to offer the same boring food to people week after week. Yes, the dairy and fresh veggies tend to vary but the basics, the canned goods, the bread and the pastas are the same month after month. (Except, that is, when a school or business decides (bless their hearts!) to hold a food drive and unusual and fun things come in. I love those days.)
So, the moral of this story is that when you hear the wingers complaining about lazy people who “choose” to be poor because they can live off of government handouts instead, know they have no idea what the hell they’re talking about. There is no way in the world anyone who says that could have spent so much as a second in a food bank. Who would choose to eat exactly the same thing week after week after week? Why would a person who can’t afford a car “choose” to lug heavy bags of food back home on the damn bus? Why would a disabled person who essentially lives in their wheel chair choose to have to limit the amount of food they can take because the only way they have to carry it is in the little pockets of the wheel chair? Huh? Who would “choose” that?
It’s amazing what I see.
Nobody would choose that hard and dreary a life.
Michael Bloomberg: The $18+ Billionaire
This would be our Tweet of the Day re NYC Mayor Michael Bloomberg who’s worth an estimated 18.1 BILLION.
Got that?
$18+ Billion. That’s with a B.
I’m off tomorrow, volunteering at my local food bank. When I’m there, I think about how the people who come through would love to have an extra $30 much less $18 billion.
The disparity in this country is Un. Real.
H/t to #OWS for their work.
Six Hours at a Food Bank — $35,000 With the President
I spend time every week at my local food bank. The goal there is to keep people off the street — to keep them from being homeless. The thinking is that if people get assistance with their food needs, they will be able to pay their rent and thus stay in their home.
The big topic of discussion today was that food banks all around the western United States are running out of food. My particular bank used to let clients come through once a month. Roughly two years ago they expanded that and let people come through once a week. Now they’re thinking about going back to the once a month deal.
All the food we give out is based on family size. For example, a “family” of one is entitled to roughly 30-40 pounds of food based on the once-a-week plan. Turn that into a once-a-month plan and that person has to stretch that 30-40 pounds of food over four weeks. A watermelon weighs what? 8 pounds. A turkey can weigh 24 pounds.
Imagine being dependent on the help of a food bank as the line between being having dependable shelter and living in your car.
With that in mind, I got home and saw this tweet:
If 60 people donated $35,800 to my food bank, that would add up to $2,148,000.
They send me to the store to buy ramen soup, but only if it’s selling for 10c or less.
How’s that for a perspective on our political system?
Putting Things in Perspective: Thrilled About a Tub of Sour Cream
I just got home from my volunteer time at the food bank. Wow. What a day. We had a steady, and I mean steady, stream of clients all morning, yet we were short on volunteers so it was very hectic. (I’m so glad to finally be sitting down!)
We were very low on the staples, i.e., canned goods, meat (no meat at all), pasta and cereal but thank goodness we had lots of milk, cream cheese, mozzarella, yogurt, sour cream, fresh fruit (strawberries, raspberries, plums, bananas, melons) and veggies (tomatoes, potatoes, carrots, cabbage, baby spinach and “Spring greens”).
I had an experience that really put being poor into perspective. I was walking a very sweet and attractive middle-aged lady through the food bank. She didn’t take all she was entitled to — she seemed to be most interested in the fresh fruits and veggies which are at the end of the aisle. But when we got to the dairy area, she saw we had tubs of sour scream and she literally shrieked with excitement. She reached into the cooler and held a tub in her hands as if she was caressing it. She turned to me and asked, “Can I have one of these,” and of course she could so I said “Yes.”
She thanked me over and over again and said she “couldn’t remember” how long it had been since she’d had sour cream and then she went on about how much she loved it.
That’s the difference between doing OK in this economy and not. The people who are doing OK can buy a tub of sour cream if they want and not think twice about it. The people who are suffering literally can’t, or they do without something else if they do.
God am I ever glad we had sour cream today!
Experiences like this really hit me in the gut.
Attention Boulder: Please, Donate to EFAA
This is a photo I got just now via email from the Emergency Family Assistance Association — the food bank where I volunteer.
If you live in Boulder, Colorado or the environs, please, PLEASE donate. The shelves are almost empty. This is pix of canned bean shelf. If we’re low on freakin’ canned beans, it’s bad.
More here at EFAA’s Facebook page.
Those Lazy, Greedy Slobs at the Food Bank?
I just got back from my volunteer time at the food bank and I have to tell you about something I see literally every time I go there.
You know how the wingers like to paint food bank customers as lazy slobs who just want to coast on society’s handouts and grab as much free stuff as they can? One trait, if you will, that I see in almost every person I guide through the bank is a sense of empathy and concern for their fellow food bank patrons.
Today I took a man through who was entitled to a certain amount of food based on the size of his family — two people. For example, a family of two can select two “canned meals,” meaning canned goods such as canned spaghetti, ravioli or chili. They can take two cans of tuna, one small jar of peanut butter, two cans of beans and they are entitled to two bags of dried beans.
The man I helped — again, this is not unusual — said he only “needed” one canned meal; he declined the tuna; he said he still had some peanut butter; he took only one bag of dried beans, and one can of beans. In other words, he really did take only what he needed. He didn’t take roughly half of what he was entitled to. He didn’t come in thinking he was going to get as much free stuff as he could. He thought about those coming after him and those who might need those items more than he, and I think that’s so wonderful.
Being poor doesn’t mean being a bad person.
Food Bank Shelves Almost Bare
I put my volunteer time in at the food bank today.
We had a lot of produce, most of it donated by local farmers and gardeners: fresh tomatoes, zucchini, melons, red peppers, kale and beets. But the shelves were almost bare of canned goods.
It was pretty dismal.
At the Food Bank Tomorrow
I spend my day volunteering at the food bank tomorrow…
you know, handing out food to people who, per Republicans and the corporatocracy “choose” that kind of life because it’s so easy and supposedly wonderful.
Nothing could be farther from the truth.
Seriously, who in their right mind would strive to be poor? Is your goal in life to go to a food bank so you can get the same canned soup, veggies and rice week after week after week?
Yep. It’s a life of luxury.
When Food Bank Volunteers Are Reduced to Tears
I worked at the food bank this morning. A steady stream of clients came through while I went to the local grocery store to get some basics like cereal (I was told not to spend more than 99¢ a box) and some ramen soup (couldn’t spend more than 17¢ each) and some baby food, as long as the jars were under 50¢.
Even food banks are broke.
At the end of my shift, as the afternoon volunteers were coming in, I noticed one, I’ll call her Diane, was hauling in bags and bags of food she purchased with her own money. Almost all of us bring in three or four or six items on the day we volunteer but after we finished weighing her haul, it totaled 269 lbs.
I asked why she brought in so much and she started tearing up. She said she had been in the day before, working as an intake counselor instead of as a “walker” (what we call the people who walk through the food bank with clients). She said she got so depressed because of the terrible situation most of the people she interviewed were in. Over the course of a year one woman had gone from living in an apartment to living in a motel. She was turned away because we only give food to people who have the capacity to prepare it and she didn’t have kitchen facilities. Another client, a man in his mid-50′s, had been living in an apartment but as of yesterday he was living in his car. Diane had to turn him away too. She sent him to the Homeless Shelter.
Diane said the only way “we are going to have any fun around here today” is if there is something other than the usual soup, chili and canned green beans on the shelves. So she brought in cookies and bottles of shampoo and pounds and pounds of ground beef and chicken nuggets and eggs and cheese.
Every city council member, every state rep, every member of congress, every president and every presidential candidate would be required to spend a week at our/a food bank, goddamnit.
Helping People
Check out this picture one of the clients at the food bank where I volunteer painted and gave us to show her appreciation for our help:
Very touching.
Being Homeless in Orlando, Florida
Having just gotten home from a five-hour stint volunteering at my local food bank, this story made my jaw drop:
Members of Orlando Food Not Bombs were arrested Wednesday when police said they violated a city ordinance by feeding the homeless in Lake Eola Park.
Jessica Cross, 24, Benjamin Markeson, 49, and Jonathan “Keith” McHenry, 54, were arrested at 6:10 p.m. on a charge of violating the ordinance restricting group feedings in public parks. McHenry is a co-founder of the international Food Not Bombs movement, which began in the early 1980s.
The group lost a court battle in April, clearing the way for the city to enforce the ordinance. It requires groups to obtain a permit and limits each group to two permits per year for each park within a 2-mile radius of City Hall.
Arrest papers state that Cross, Markeson and McHenry helped feed 40 people Wednesday night. The ordinance applies to feedings of more than 25 people.
“They intentionally violated the statute,” said Lt. Barbara Jones, an Orlando police spokeswoman.
Police waited until everyone was served to make the arrests, said Douglas Coleman, speaking for Orlando Food Not Bombs.
“They basically carted them off to jail for feeding hungry people,” said Coleman, who was not present. “For them to regulate a time and place for free speech and to share food, that is unacceptable.”
Orlando Food Not Bombs has been feeding the homeless breakfast on Mondays for several years and dinner on Wednesdays for five years.
Police had not enforced the ordinance while the court battle continued. The U.S. District Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit in Atlanta ruled that city rules regulating how often large groups of people can be fed in a park do not violate the Constitution.
The law is the law and if there is a law banning feeding groups of 25-or-more people then the cops were right to enforce it, but that damn law has got to be changed.
How assbackward is it that a law banning feeding homeless people is enacted and enforced but what the banksters did to crash the economy goes without a single indictment and George W. Bush & Co. lie us into a war that kills hundreds of thousands of people (including 4,000+ of our kids) and everyone looks the other way?
What a country.
Slow Couple of Days Here at the Ol’ Blog
It was slow here at the ol’ blog today and it will be tomorrow too because I’m volunteering extra time at the food bank
sorting food brought in by the Letter Carriers’ Food Drive.
The preliminary reports are that in the Boulder area (the food drive was a nationwide effort), the haul is down by about half over last year.
Understandable but depressing.
Can You Spare a Few Cans of Veggies?
Tomorrow the National Association of Letter Carriers — the people who deliver your mail — are holding a nation-wide food drive. The food they collect will go to food banks around the country. I happen to volunteer at a food bank that has been in existence since 1917. I am sure it hasn’t been under stress like this since the Great Depression. We are barely getting by so this food drive is a necessity, not a luxury.
Anyway, you can put non-perishable food out, by your mailbox, and your Letter Carrier will take it. You know, things like canned soup, chili, beans, canned fruit and vegetables, dried pasta, rice and cereal. Every single can will be appreciated.
Thanks.
ConAgra — Beware Its New Tearjerker Scam
The food giant ConAgra — you know, the people who bankrupt family farmers and pump chemicals into just about everything we eat so they profit out the wazoo (never minding our health) — has a new trick up its sleeve: Buy its products — with the “Child Hunger Ends Here” label and register online — and ConAgra will ah, do something like maybe, possibly donate to a food bank.
People have to register online in order to maybe, possibly donate to a food bank? ConAgra wins: They have your info and you’ll get email solicitations until the day you die.
Wanna help hungry kids? I do too. I volunteer at a food bank, but I sure as hell wouldn’t give via ConAgra.
Tell ConAgra to duckoff. Donate directly to a food bank and leave ConAgra out of it.
Don’t fall for this scam. It’s about ConAgra linking to you, your computer and your info. It isn’t about food banks.
Volunteering
Some days are slow here at the ol’ blog because I’m volunteering at Emergency Family Assistance:
HSN: A $250.00 Razor?
High school kids were standing outside my local grocery store the other day asking people to pick-up simple items poor and homeless people do without. One of the items was disposable razors.
As a food bank volunteer I know razors are coveted but scarce so I forked over six bucks for a 12-pack.
Three days later I see this:
$249.50 for a “Hair Removal Kit?”
Are you kidding me?
That would be — in essence — $250.00 for a cordless razor.
Go here people:
$24.99.
Donate $250.00 to yourself or to your local homeless shelter.
Oy.
Amazing what people will buy.
What Not to Do if You Donate Food to a Food Bank
I worked at my local food bank today. The place was apparently swamped yesterday so the volunteers didn’t have time to restock the shelves. Thus we had plenty to do from the moment we got there. (Not complaining. I like being busy.)
About an hour in, two ladies from a local church arrived with a trunk-load of food — canned goods, pastas, rice, shampoo and a few miscellaneous items like canned smoked oysters and salad dressing. Their donation totaled 224 pounds and of course, we were thrilled to get it. We love it when people bring food and other items in because they tend to bring in things that are different from what we regularly stock. It’s nice when the clients have a wider selection, even if it’s only a marginally wider selection and, unfortunately, only temporary.
After the ladies left and we began to distribute what they dropped off, we noticed that several of the canned goods were expired. I mean, really, really expired — as in six and seven years expired.
Folks, food banks have standards, or at least, the one where I work does. We respect our clients. They may be poor but we don’t just throw food at them — be it rotten or expired or opened or ripped — and expect them to be grateful. Two, we certainly don’t want to jeopardize their health. All packaging has to have retained its integrity, nothing (like a box of crackers) can be half-eaten (yes, we get that too), and we check expiration dates.
So if you decide to donate to a food bank, check the dates on the food you’re donating. I think it’s so disrespectful to pass your old stuff off on them. It disrespects the food bank, the volunteers who work there, and the clients who depend on it.
Thank you.
What It’s Like Pushing a Cart Full of Top Ramen Around a Grocery Store
I spent my volunteer time at the food bank today as I do every week. One of my chores was to go to the grocery store and buy 50 “cases” (12-pack boxes) of Top Ramen.
So I get there and grab the biggest cart I can find and I head to the soup aisle.
The cases are on the bottom shelf so I get down on the floor and pull out one after the other and carefully back them into my cart (the last thing I want is to drag two carts around).
I pack and stuff and cram and in the end I take all the chicken and beef ramen cases on the shelf — something like 35. Other shoppers pass me but they didn’t look me in the eye because, well, they obviously think I’m either crazy or really, really poor. After all, we’re talking about the potential for 12 meals per box here at a total cost of $1.97 each.
In the end, I push my cart to the check-out line while looking over the top of all those boxes, hoping none of them fall on the floor. I notice, as I pass by a stocker, that he waits until I pass before he turns and looks at me.
I pull into the check-out line behind an elderly couple who don’t look back. I glance at the lady who slides in behind me and she looks away. Settling in to wait my turn, I grab a copy of US magazine and I see a manager-type standing to the side who averts her eyes when I try to nod a hello.
It dawns on me: I’m being treated like a weirdo because my cart is full of Top Ramen.
I’m living a micro-episode of a version of Black Like Me, but mine is crazy like me or poor like me or weird like me.
.
At the Food Bank
I put in my volunteer time at the food bank today. So frustrating and sad that we didn’t have basics like peanut butter and canned tuna. In the “richest country in the world” no less.
Between stocking and walking people through there was no down time.
I’ve been there for two years. Two years ago, if you’d asked me, I would have said clients visits would be slowing down by now but they’re not. If anything they’re picking up.
Poverty Remains Flat in the United States
The Recovery Act Kept 4.5 Million People Out of Poverty in 2009, Helping Keep Poverty Flat:
Our analysis of data that the Census Bureau released this week shows that the 2009 American Recovery and Reinvestment Act was one of the single most effective pieces of antipoverty legislation in decades. In 2009, the Recovery Act’s temporary expansion of the safety net kept 4.5 million people out of poverty.
I volunteer at a food bank that scrambles to stock its shelves to help the desperately poor so this as very good news.
That said, it’s astonishing to me that over the course of the last three or four years, we here in the U.S. are becoming accustomed to headlines about poverty.
My Food Bank Begs for Money
The food bank I volunteer at has to beg for 600 bucks
while as we speak, million dollar bonus checks are being handed out on Wall Street.
How screwed up a society is that?
Great Day at the Food Bank
I just got back from the food bank. Wow. What a great day. Well, I should qualify that by saying I think it it is so wrong that food banks are even necessary in our society but given the fact that they are, it was a great day.
Both the volunteers and the clients were in the holiday spirit. The shelves were packed and we had lots of goodies, i.e, things outside the usual beans, soup, rice, tuna and canned veggies and fruit.
We had a huge selection of condiments (since when does a food bank have Tartar sauce or salsa or blueberry jam?). We had fresh onions, apples, kale, potatoes, both cheddar and goat cheese, two kinds of milk (whole and 2%), soy coffee creamer, seven or eight varieties of cereal, French bread and lots of pasta and spaghetti sauce.
It felt so good to take clients through and offer them something different. It’s awful taking people through week after week who see the same food every single time — which will happen again come January (through October).
