Meat

Number of Folks: 6
Accomplished: Packed  and sorted  between 2-3 thousands pounds of meat, dairy, eggs, produce and baked goods.

Idaho Hunger Fact of the Week: 41% of food bank recipients’ households included children under age 18.

Every Monday, Wednesday and Friday area grocery stores deliver to the food bank,  goods near their expiration date. This food must be weighed, logged, sorted and either frozen, refrigerated  or shipped out to the agencies and  community pantries quickly. The weighing and logging are important because the stores get tax write-offs for the food that is donated.  Here's the process:

Meats are done first because they need to be put into the freezer as soon as possible. Meat is weighed by store, pounds noted on a spread sheet, and then put on a conveyor to be packed into boxes and marked.  Yesterday chicken, beef, pork, sausage, lunch meats, bacon, ham and other miscellaneous products.  It was really heartening to see so much product as well as variety!

Next we did dairy and eggs. Same process, but it is put into plastic dairy crates you often see at the stores.  Products included milk, juice,  yogurt, in short anything you'd find in the dairy care.  Not much dairy yesterday...maybe a dozen crates.

Produce was next. We had to sort thru and throw out anything rotten. The rule was, "would you eat or use this yourself?".  It' very subjective because each of us have different standard.   Wish folks could just go to the stores and make the decision themselves. You might have a different standard if you or your kids needed food!

Next was baked goods...bread, muffins, doughnuts, cakes, cookies, cakes --- anything you'd find in the bakery/bread section of a grocery store. A lot of it looked great! Made us hungry.

Last was miscellaneous frozen foods(products you'd find in the freezer)...not much of that!

As usual, time went quickly and we finished our work in about an hour and a half.  Another successful week.

Bread or God Provides the number of workers needed

Number of Folks: 3
Accomplished: Packed 72 Cases of Bread + Unkown # of  Dairy, Fresh Produce and  Baked Goods Delivered from area Grocery stores

"Time goes fast when we are here", we agreed.  Although just 3 of us showed up today, it was exactly the right number of people.  Out first  assignment was packing bread.  Relatively easy after the frenetic pace and heavy lifting we did last week. The process, tape up the boxes, pack six loaves of bread into a box, tape the box shut. mark it with an "L" and stack on a pallet.

                                                                               Marking the Boxes..

Packing Bread





               Done and ready to be shipped out!

After we we finished the bread, we went to help pack and sort fresh produce, dairy, baked good and meat. Each Monday, Wednesday and Friday area grocery stores deliver to the food bank goods that are near their expiration date. This food must be sorted and shipped out to the agencies and pantry's quickly. Some of the stuff is frozen.  A group from the alternative school that comes each week on Friday's was already working on this project. These young teens come with their "work coaches" to help learn work skills. They were friendly and hard working.  Seems like a lot of people win... the kids, the foodbank and ultimately the folks needing food!   Another good week.

Sorting and Boxing Food

Number of Folks:11
Accomplished: Sorting and boxing between 5 and 6 tons of food.

Today, 11 folks showed up from Grace to volunteer!  We were assigned the job of sorting food. As food (cans, jars, boxes, bags, etc.)  come into the foodbank it is collected in large boxes.  This jumble of food needs to be sorted and boxed for distribution to the agencies.  The folks  at the foodbank has established the  following categories: vegetables, fruits, meat, beverages, cereals, grains, snacks, condiments, baby items, household items.  The food is sorted into boxes, weighed, taped shut, labeled and stacked onto pallets. With so many people, we needed someone just taping empty boxes because we were filling them so fast.

The  trickiest part is often deciding what category the item belongs to. Sometimes it's not obvious. For example, spaghetti sauce is a condiment. So is peanut butter, pancake syrup, spices, cooking oil and  packaged sauce mixes.  Chili with meat (con carne) is a meat. Chili with beans is a vegetable. Snacks include all dessert items such as pie fillings, cake mixes, jello and muffin mixes.  You have to open all the peanut butter jars because people often donate jars that have been opened. We found several.("Yuck!") Badly dented cans and any package that has been opened has to be thrown out.  If a cereal box is opened, but the package inside is  still sealed, it's OK. Once you learn the system, it's just work. The foodbank was very happy and I think a little surprised  with how much we accomplished in a couple of hours! They thanked us profusely!

One thing that struck me is how much junk, I mean snack, food is donated. Cookies, chips, crackers and candy were probably half of the volume of food  (at least this day).  I suppose it keeps people from being hungry, but surely not healthy!

Potato Buds

Number of Folks: 4
Accomplished: packaging about 450 lbs of Potato buds

Today, before we started work, Joye gave us a tour of the Foodbank warehouse. A lot of food moves thru the warehouse on a weekly basis. The foodbank gets donations from many sources: growers, packers, manufacturers, distributors, wholesalers, retailers, and community food drives. The food bank re-distributes the food to charitable non-profits agencies in South East Idaho. They include soup kitchens, food pantries, emergency shelters, childcare centers, senior citizen food programs, family services centers, and rehabilitation centers. We learned that all the food is donated. Money collected pays for food transportation to the foodbank.  For example, if a manufacturer in Texas is willing to donate a semi-truck of food, the foodbank pays for the transport of that food to Idaho. Recently, the foodbank entered partnerships with  Albertsons and Walmart to pick up fresh food(dairy, meat, vegetables) near it's expiration date for distribution. Pickups are made  3days a week: Monday, Wednesday and Friday.   The foodbank has a large walk in cooler and freezer to store the food. Food that cannot be frozen must be distributed  quickly.  It was impressive to see how much food passes thru this facility in such a short time wit limited staff and volunteers. While we were there, a gentleman came in from Aid For Friends, a local shelter for the homeless to pick up several cases of milk for the eight children that were now living there.

Our project this week was to take 900 pounds of bulk potato buds and repackage them into smaller packages.  The  process was to tape  cardboard boxes, label quart size plastic bags, scoop  potato buds into a  bag, close it, pack twelve bags into a cardboard box, tape the box shut, label the box and stack on a wooden palette.  We packed 23 boxes or 276 bags of potato buds, about half of the potato buds in about an hour and a half. 




900 pounds of  potato buds!


                                                    Taping Boxes!

 

Boxes ready for distribution to our agencies!