Posts filed under ‘At the Food Bank’
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).
Rachael Ray v. Glenn Beck
Just for the heck of it, let’s compare Rachael Ray, the Food Network star, to Glenn Beck:
You may have heard that, “in the spirit of Christmas,” Beck,
will be bringing his radio and TV shows to economically devastated Wilmington, Ohio tomorrow, and he is even inviting residents to join him at his radio show taping. Of course, Beck being the “populist” that he is, will be charging the residents of a county where unemployment is at 15.8%, $125 to attend.
To the surprise of no one, except maybe Beck himself, Glenn is having a bit of trouble selling tickets. Despite the fact that his appearance is tomorrow, seats are available starting in the seventh row of the 999 seat Murphy Theatre. This fact has more to do with the $125 price tag of tickets to watch Beck tape his radio show than it does the popularity of the Fox News host.
You see, Wilmington, Ohio has been devastated by the Great Recession. The town lost 10,000 jobs when their major employer DHL closed down in 2008, and is still mired in an economic nightmare.
Fast forward to 2010, the unemployment rate in Clinton County, where Wilmington is located, sits at 15.8%. The overall unemployment rate in Ohio is 9.9%. Into this daily struggle for survival, steps Glenn Beck to spread a little holiday cheer for the small price of $125, or $500 if you would like to personally meet the conservative embodiment of populism.
What a guy, heh?
Compare that to what Rachael Ray did for Wilmington during last year’s holiday season:
Television cooking star Rachael Ray is boosting the local food supply for a struggling Ohio town.
On Saturday, Ray brought a Wilmington soup kitchen new appliances, shelves and furniture. Ray’s show also promised to supply food for the kitchen for the next year.
The soup kitchen is getting as many customers in a day as it did in a week a year ago.
Wilmington is still reeling from the departure of DHL Express and other Wilmington Air Park operations, which has left a 15 percent local unemployment rate in its wake.
On Sunday, the Food Network star hosted an early Thanksgiving feast for the community. The soup kitchen improvements and the Thanksgiving meal are scheduled to be featured on “The Rachael Ray Show” on Nov. 25.
I don’t have a clue as to Rachael Ray’s political preferences, nonetheless I think this illustrates the difference between conservatives and progressives.
The WaPo’s Elizabeth Tenety Has Got to Go
The Washington Posts’s “On Faith” blogger, Elizabeth Tenety — who is clearly unfit for her job – asks: “In a time of economic turmoil and record poverty levels, are tax cuts for the wealthy moral?”
What?
The question isn’t about the “suffering” rich, it’s about: In a time of economic turmoil and record poverty levels, why are the poor made to suffer when the wealthy have so much?
Down and Out in Boulder, Colorado
As some of you know, I volunteer at a food bank.
I just got a newsletter from them and here are some of the stats regarding the people we served this year:
In 2010, 64% of households served were headed by females; 75% were Caucasian, 42% were Hispanic; $13,950 was the average annual income, with 88% of families earning less than $20,000 per hear.
How does anyone live on just under $14,000 per year, not to mention less than $20,000? It is so amazing to me — in a heartbreaking kind of way — to think about how totally, totally down and out some people are and how their chances of climbing out of that canyon are almost nil. I mean, here in Boulder (our clients must reside within the city limit) $14,000 would cover a year’s rent in a crappy place and leave you maybe a couple thousand for everything else. How does one get ahead with “resources” like that?
How people survive, I’ll never know.
Bernie Sanders, Zillionaires and Food Banks
Surreal: I spent five hours at the food bank today handing out the same food we’ve had all year to people in need. (One woman gave me a grateful but sad, weepy hug when we said good-bye. Another, when I asked how she was said, “Hanging in there, just like everyone else.”)
The clients had a “choice” of canned beans, canned tuna, canned fruit, canned veggies, week-old bread, frozen meat so old it’s almost black, little packets of cereal, milk, butter (we had eight sticks all told), cottage cheese, celery, Romaine lettuce, orange bell peppers, onions and toilet paper.
At the end of my “shift,” I got in the car, turned on the radio, and listened to Bernie Sanders argue against a $700 billion tax break for zillionaires as I drove home.
One day. Two worlds.
Bare Bones at the Food Bank
Just got back from my volunteer stint at the food bank. Really depressing.
I’ve volunteered there for two years now and this is the barest the shelves have ever been between Thanksgiving and Christmas. In the past that was such a fun time because members of the community would bring bags of free food in and we would have unusual things, like nuts and cookies and cakes and candy. It’s obvious people are less able to make donations because we’re back to the usual canned beans, canned green beans and soups.
Two years ago we had frozen turkeys, cases of “Stove Top Stuffing,” potatoes, gravy, eggnog and ice cream. This year we don’t even have the basics like canned tomatoes. Our pasta supply is limited to spaghetti. We have cases of orange peppers, a few dozen bunches of old celery, a few dozen old carrots, a case or two of half-slimy lettuce but no fresh fruit whatsoever.
One of the people I helped desperately wanted a shower cap. How much does a shower cap cost? Three dollars? We didn’t have one of course, though I have seen them there in the past (toiletries are usually in very short supply), so she said she’d check back next week.
How sad is that? How sad is it to think that someone is so poor they can’t afford a shower cap?
That’s why it’s so heartbreaking not to be able to offer people something special; something other than the same old stuff that we have week after week, month after month. They don’t have squat.
Oh, and President Obama, I invite you to take a tour. Come see what what’s happening at the bottom of the rung in the United States as you ponder extending tax cuts to the rich. Hell, the rich are so greedy they aren’t even donating to food banks anymore.
Food Banks in America’s Wealthiest County Struggle to Feed the Needy
As someone who has volunteered once a week for two years at a food bank and who sees firsthand how desperate people are, I find this shameful:
The economy may be showing signs of life, but food pantries and other nonprofit food-distribution agencies around the region say they are struggling to meet record-breaking demand as the holidays approach.
In Loudoun County – the nation’s wealthiest county measured by median income – the food pantry is distributing its first-ever Thanksgiving meal, giving food to 2,000 families. In Montgomery County, the Manna Food Center added some Saturday hours for the convenience of working families. And in Fairfax County, the nonprofit Our Daily Bread is facing the grim reality that, although it will feed 2,400 people, it may not be able to help as many 650 needy families at Thanksgiving.
So the richest people are the stingiest.
You Can Tell When Someone is New to the Food Bank
I spent the morning walking people through my local food bank.
It was very, very busy. It seems as if there aren’t any lulls anymore.
Three or four of the people I helped were first-timers. I always ask if the people have been there before because that means they know the procedure, but you can tell a first-timer. They tend to be dressed better than the regular clients and they don’t make eye contact.
Sad.
Get Your Thanksgiving Fixin’s at the Food Bank
I walked a 50-something woman and her husband through the food bank today and at one point she said something that struck me as so sad. We were at the pasta station. I told her she could take either two pastas or one pasta and one Stove Top stuffing. She said she’d take the Stove Top and the one pasta — because they had to start thinking about what they were going to have for Thanksgiving.
As luck would have it, we had stuffing. Chances are good they wouldn’t having stuffing on Thanksgiving if we didn’t.
Imagine putting together a Thanksgiving meal based on what was available at your local food bank.
Food Bank Running Out of Food
Just got this email from the food bank where I volunteer:
The foodbank [sic] is in great need of your help right now! We are all out of: canned tuna, chili, cereal, and canned tomatoes. Thanks for the help!
Miami TV Stations Protect McDonald’s
From the Physicians’ Committee for Responsible Medicine (PCRM):
This ad was turned down by Miami television stations even though,
A PCRM survey shows that Miami has four McDonald’s, Burger King, or KFC locations per square mile—more than five other cities with similar population sizes and than other cities in general. All other cities in PCRM’s survey, including Houston, Chicago, Los Angeles, and Cleveland, had fewer than one per square mile.
McDonald’s, the world’s largest fast-food chain, serves a long list of high-fat, high-cholesterol items and offers almost no healthful choices, according to an analysis by PCRM dietitians. Miami—which is only 35 square miles—has 63 McDonald’s restaurants.
“When you see the Golden Arches, you could be on the road to the Pearly Gates,” says Neal Barnard, M.D., PCRM’s president. “Busy families and children eating meaty, cheesy burgers and nuggets pay the price in obesity, heart disease, and hypertension. A health warning is essential.”
Heart disease kills nearly 1,500 residents of Miami each year. According to the National Association of County and City Health Officials, the death rate from heart disease in Miami is the second highest of all large U.S. cities—only Las Vegas has a higher rate.
So, every 24 months as many people die of heart disease in Miami as died on 9/11 but television stations there can’t see fit to air this ad?
Ah yes, the corporatocracy at its best.
(Guess this is another example of the “liberal media.”)
At the Food Bank
Just got back from volunteering at the food bank. As soon as I got there this morning it was clear we’d be doing a lot of stocking as the shelves were essentially bare. One of the other volunteers said she was there Wednesday afternoon and the shelves were full; yesterday must have been crazy busy.
So, after lifting boxes of 4-gallon milk jugs and cases of juice and green beans and chili and bagging lettuce and moving sacks of potatoes and apples around, my upper body is a wreck. Definitely got a workout.
At the Food Bank
It was an extremely busy day at the food bank today, not surprisingly. As I was heading there I kept thinking about the 44 million Americans who are now living in poverty — a number that is still almost incomprehensible to me — and I was doubly glad I decided, about a year and a half ago, to volunteer there. At least I was doing something — albeit microscopic — to help and to dampen my outrage at what’s going on around here.
We were very low on a few of our staples, namely spaghetti sauce and cereal, but we had lots of milk, butter, cheese, yogurt, and fresh fruit and veggies (red and green apples, orange peppers, melons, red grapes, spinach, baby greens and mushrooms, which I’ve never seen there before today). Oh, and we had big boxes of Kleenex which we have never had before either.
I took a big bag of puppy “training treats” with me and divided them into baggie-sized portions. I saw a woman take one of them — delighted to see them there. It made me happy for her and her dog.
Several older men came through who I’d never seen before. One was probably in his late 50′s. He looked like he had had a very rough life — he was sort of hunched over and his skin looked weathered beyond his years. What struck me most was that he was wearing a cap that said “Vietnam Veteran,” yet there he was, at a food bank.
Things should start picking up over the next few weeks. As the holidays approach the public starts thinking about those less fortunate than they are and donations flood in. That’s when it’s really fun — giving people things like boxes of cookies and cakes and candies and hams and turkeys — stuff we otherwise don’t have.
It must be so boring for our regulars to see essentially the same thing on the shelves week after week.
At the Food Bank
Busy day at the food bank, though not as busy as it’s been the last several weeks.
We had the usual chili, rice and canned veggies but we were absolutely bursting at the seams with arugula, baby spinach, yellow peppers, GIANT zucchini, bananas, potatoes and corn.
A farmer brought in a huge bag of baby greens and some individually bagged baby spinach. A lady brought in six or seven huge zucchini she said were from her son’s garden. Two other ladies brought in a bunch of baby bottles, which, in the year and a half I’ve volunteered at the food bank, I’ve never seen offered to the clients. They also brought in a box of clothes for new babies — tiny t-shirts and knit caps — and some toys.
So, things are good at the food bank — today.
Hectic Day at the Food Bank
It was a wild day at the food bank. In the four hours I was there, roughly 20 families came through, many of whom I see once a week.
I find it so sad that for the most part we offer the same thing day after day, month after month. The only thing that changes — from the usual canned beans, canned chili, canned fruit and veggies, bread, frozen meat, rice, pasta, cereal, milk, yogurt and processed American cheese — is the occasional treat like fresh blueberries (which we had today), butter, eggs and fresh veggies, which are abundant now thanks to donations from local farmers. (It’s zucchini season — you know — the two foot long monstrosities that are about 10″ in diameter.)
Every once in a great while, as in a few times a year, we’ll have cakes or cupcakes, cheeses like mozzarella or Gruyère, chocolate milk or orange juice.
Yes, it’s free food for those who qualify but believe me, you wouldn’t want to eat what we offer on a long-term basis. Anyone who thinks people are poor on purpose, because it’s easier or more fun, is nuts.
Rush Limbaugh Thinks I’m a “Lazy Idiot”
Speaking of going to the food bank, watch this devastating response to Rush Limbaugh calling people who volunteer at non-profit organizations, “lazy idiots” and “rapists in terms of finance and economy:”
Crazy Day at the Food Bank
Just got back from my volunteer stint at the food bank.
Crazy day.
When I arrived this morning the shelves were all but bare. Apparently there had been an onslaught of clients going through the bank yesterday afternoon — keeping the volunteers busy– making it impossible for them to spend time stocking. So though people were arriving and going through intake, we kept them in the reception area for about 20 minutes while five or six of us rushed around stocking beans, chili, tuna, canned fruit and vegetables, rice, tomato sauce and pasta.
Then we had to walk eight families through as quickly as possible as more people were arriving all the time. Unfortunately we only have five grocery carts, the facility is fairly small, and invariably there are one or two people who stop to read every word on every label, holding up the whole process as the procession winds through the narrow aisles.
When there was a lull, we went back to stocking.
Wonderful people there though — both the paid employees and the folks who come through.
Now I get to sit down. Amazing how physically tiring it is lifting 25 lb. cases of canned food for five hours.
Pig Ears, Anyone?
The blog CHOW.com is out with its “7 Biggest Food Trends,” and one of the seven big new things is pig ears. This is the second time in a week I’ve seen a reference to the popularity of pig ears so I guess the craze is real:
Pig Ears: Fried in strips at the Laxy Ox in Los Angeles; on a salad at Resto in NY; at Animal in Los Angeles with chile and lime.
The only pig ears I’m familiar with are the crispy, dried pig ears that are sold as dog treats.
Would you order a pig ear if you saw it on a menu? I would. I tried rattlesnake once (corny but true — it tastes like chicken) so I think I could handle a pig’s ear.
I Volunteer for Tony Hayward’s Job
So, it looks like BP CEO Tony Hayward has his life back. BP’s Chairman, Carl-Henric Svanberg, the guy who said he really, really cares about the “small people,” sent Hayward back to London today after Hayward spent yesterday in front of a congressional panel saying, in essence, I don’t know anything about what went on or what’s going on.
Tony took home $36.5 million last year.
I’ve volunteered at a food bank for the last year and a half. I am a “food bank assistant” and I’m charged with making sure there are ample supplies of food on the floor of the food bank (as opposed to in the basement, where stocks are kept) so the shelves and bins can be replenished at a moment’s notice. I don’t get a dime for what I do. Yet if I’d been hauled before congress to answer questions about how the food bank works, I could have told the representatives a whole lot more about how the place works than $36.5 Million Tony did.
Outrageous, isn’t it, the imbalance going on around here?
What a Great Alternative to an Easter Egg Hunt
This is a great alternative to an Easter egg hunt: Hide canned food in a park, a big yard or on church grounds. Let the little kids hunt for the cans, as if they were Easter eggs, and donate the food to a food bank.
Love that idea.
Insane Weather
Yesterday I was outside, raking leaves off my perennial beds. It was sunny and the temperature was 67º. Today I crossed my fingers and made my way — barely — back and forth to my volunteer job at the food bank. The temperature is 29º, we have 11′ of snow on the ground and it’s still coming down — near white-out conditions at times.
Crazy!
At the Food Bank
The food bank was busy today. Families came through on a steady basis the whole time I was there. The shelves were pretty well stocked though the produce — sweet potatoes, apples, eggplant and carrots — looked old.
A local church is having a food drive on Sunday (must be one of those “social justice” churches) so I followed one of the staff members to its parking lot where he left the truck, for the parishioners to fill up on Sunday, and then I brought him back to the bank. So nice of churches to do that. It helps us so, so much.
A cool thing I noticed today was that almost all the people who came though — even though they’re dealing with crushing issues in their lives — brought their own grocery bags. Neat to see that even with everything on their plate, they have the energy to care about the environment.
At the Food Bank
Today was an incredibly busy day at the food bank. We were surmising as to why. End of the month when money can be scarce? A snow-less day (for a change), making it easier for people to get around? Couldn’t put our finger on it but we three volunteers were escorting people through without a break. One of the three intake workers told me she alone saw 20 families.
Unfortunately, though the number of people coming through was very high, the amount of food on the shelves was low. We were lucky today in that we had a wonderful variety of dairy products — cottage cheese, cream cheese, American cheese, Provolone and milk. But some of the basics, like canned vegetables, bread and frozen meat were almost gone — beef was gone.
Several churches in the area will be holding food drives in the coming weeks and the Postal Service holds its drive in May. Come the summer local farmers will donate things like herbs and onions and corn. By then though, we could be seeing more need than ever.
Sometimes it feels like we’re swimming uphill.
