Connecticut Food Bank, East Haven, CT

Our last trip in June 2010 was to the Connecticut Food Bank, the larger of 2 food banks serving the state.  The CT Food Bank serves a huge number of separate organizations (650).  The largest percentage is food pantries (41%), followed by residential programs (18%), programs for children (13%), soup kitchens (11%), and emergency shelters and adult day programs (9%).  CEO Nancy Carrington, who has been with the CT Food Bank for 26 years, graciously detailed how the food bank operates and gave us a tour of their spotless and orderly main facility. 

We were especially interested in some of the changes Nancy saw occurring:

• The food bank is outgrowing its present space as the need for emergency food increases.
  
• The proportion of food coming to the food bank from grocery stores or food manufacturers is decreasing because the food industry is becoming much better at minimizing waste and producing or ordering only what’s needed.  Thus, the proportion coming from the federal government commodities program is increasing.
• The CT Food Bank is working to find new ways to get food to those who need it.  For example, they run a BackPack program to give kid-friendly nutritious food to 1200 food insecure kids when they leave school on Friday.  Packs include foods like Cheerios, milk, fruit, beans & franks, etc., all in shelf-stable single-serving packages that the kids can eat without adult assistance.
• There is more of a push to include fresh produce among the foods supplied to client programs.  It’s very challenging to pick up donated fresh produce from the grocery stores or other sources and get it to the client programs undamaged and before it spoils.  Many programs don’t have refrigerator or freezer facilities, they may not have appropriate vehicles to transport fresh produce, and they may only be open once a week or even less frequently.
• The need for emergency food is increasing in certain areas with few food pantries.  So the CT Food Bank has started mobile food pantries to supply primarily fresh foods.  They’re awaiting a new truck that they’ve purchased with federal stimulus money; this truck will be specially configured with doors on the sides to make it work well as a mobile pantry.

The next day, we volunteered at a mobile food pantry in Wauregan, CT.  It was held in the large parking lot of the Central Assembly of God church.  The truck arrived at 10:00.  We helped about 12 volunteers from the church and the community set up a long row of tables, repackage zucchini, broccoli, and apples into individual bags, and set all the food out for the pantry guests.  Other food available included vegetarian kabobs, carrots, potatoes, yogurt, fruit drink, and a large selection of breads.  Guests began arriving at 10:30.  After the volunteers had been instructed on how to serve the guests, the pantry opened at 11:00.  Each guest signed in and proceeded down the line as a volunteer offered them each item.  By 12:00 when the pantry closed, most of the food was gone.

This was the third time the pantry had been held at this location.  The first month about 35 families were served, the second month over 50, and this time 81 families went home with a much-needed supply of nutritious food.

Open Table of Christ, Providence, RI

During the second week in June, we were privileged to visit the Open Table of Christ United Methodist Church in Providence, RI. It occupies an aging facility (built in stages starting in 1895) located in the heart of an economically challenged and highly ethnically diverse area in Providence.

Open Table of Christ was formed in 2006 as a merger of two congregations. We met with Pastor Duane Clinker, who is leading the church toward a new vision of a radically open, multi-cultural, multi-racial community church with its center of gravity among the poor. Duane envisions the church as building community, being community.

At the time of the merger, the church housed and ran the 3rd largest food pantry in the state. Unfortunately, an undetected water leak caused a very bad mold problem, which ruined most of the stored food and severely damaged the basement pantry locations. Nevertheless, Open Table of Christ did not give up on the food pantry. The church voted to move the pews out of the sanctuary, store food in a room that had been a lounge, and set up the pantry for guests in the chapel twice a week.

The food pantry, now called “New Horizons Community Pantry,” forms the heart of Open Table of Christ’s community ministry today. We met and worked with Jerry Viou, Project Outreach Administrator, who is in charge of the food pantry (and much more). Here he is, ready to welcome guests to the sanctuary:

The day we helped out, the pantry operated like this:

• Guests arrived as early as 5:30 AM. Doors to the sanctuary opened around 7:30 when the floor manager arrived. Guests signed in, got a number, and waited in the sanctuary, where Jerry had quiet music playing and volunteers served coffee and snacks. Pantry food is extremely important to them. While most are eligible for SNAP (the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program), many do not sign up due to language barriers, illiteracy, or fear based on their immigration status.

• Meanwhile a dozen or so caring and dedicated volunteers readied food to offer to guests. A large donation of bread arrived from Panera Bread and other local stores. We repacked some of the bread, such as bagels, into portions approximately equal to 1 loaf of bread. We also moved boxes of food from the storage area into the chapel and arranged it on long tables. All that food had come from food drives and the RI Community Food Bank, but due to a very large incidence of food that had arrived damaged by rodents, dirty, out of date, or opened, each can, jar, and package was carefully checked by volunteers. Anything that was not wholesome and clean was discarded. Pictured here is an example we found of a jar which not only had expired in 2005 but also was leaking.

PLEASE:  When you donate to food drives, give only food you would be proud to serve at your own table.

• At about 9:30, the pantry was ready for guests. Jerry read a short Bible passage and said a prayer with the guests who had been waiting patiently in the sanctuary. His English message was translated into Spanish and Portuguese by bilingual guests or volunteers. Then each guest, assisted by a volunteer who could help translate food labels, came into the chapel and selected pasta, pasta sauce, tuna, beans, vegetables, a baking item (such as jello or a cake mix), a loaf of bread, a condiment item, and a fruit or soft drink (as long as the supply lasted). 
• By 10:30 all the guests had received food, and the volunteers returned the remaining food to storage.
• Like many good community programs, Project Outreach partners with many other organizations. For example, a doctor comes every Tuesday to assist pantry guests. There are classes in ESL and in management of common health conditions such as asthma and diabetes. And the AS220 Broad Street Studio created a gallery in the chapel displaying photographs with moving quotes by guests.

This pantry faces tremendous obstacles every day. They have an aging building, substandard and decreasing food donations, and increasing need in their community. But through it all, Open Table of Christ is becoming a vibrant, multicultural, urban community center.

Plant A Row for the Hungry, Oxford County, ME

How does one person provide upwards of 300 hungry people with healthy, fresh produce?  Through Plant A Row for the Hungry and lots of volunteers!

On June 3 and 4, we visited South Paris, ME, where Barbara Murphy, Maine Extension Service Educator, runs a particularly effective and inspiring Plant A Row program for Oxford County.  Barbara's goal this year is to provide 12,000 lbs of fresh produce to those who need it in Oxford County.  Since she also teaches the master gardener classes, and each student provides 40 hours of community gardening in conjunction with the course, she has a ready supply of volunteers (they jokingly call themselves her “indentured servants!”).  Many of these volunteers are inspired by her example, and continue to provide service well beyond what’s required from the course.  We helped in 3 very different gardens.

The first garden we worked in with Barbara (shown on the right with one of her master gardeners) was located right behind a Tri-Country Mental Health Facility.  Clients in the day program, with the help of Barbara and several master gardeners, plant beans, squash, tomatoes, cantaloupe, beets, carrots, and other produce.  As the produce grows and ripens, the clients will harvest it for themselves and the center.  All of the clients are on SNAP (the government food assistance program), and more than 50% are also diabetic (caused, in part, by the medications they need to take), so these foods help them increase the nutritional value of their usual diets.  The staff include healthy eating information in their program, along with recipes using the ripe produce.  This was the 4th year for this garden, and the clients now have learned the routine, pitch in and help each other, ask for direction from Barbara and the other gardeners, and really enjoy the activity.  While we were there, we weeded, helped one client plant bean seeds, several others wet newspapers to lay as a weed barrier, and others spread mulch. 

That evening, we helped a large group of master gardeners with activities in Barbara's large gardens on the grounds of the county extension service.  One of the new master gardeners commented that actually working in the gardens helped her to cement the knowledge she’d learned in the classroom portion, and she was really enjoying the hands-on learning.  The first activity was to harvest, wash, and weigh beautiful, large onions that had been planted last fall, and spinach that had been grown this spring.  These harvested goodies will supply 87 seniors that obtain supplemental food at the county extension office each week an added treat of good, fresh produce.  Then we planted various squash seedlings and other crops from seeds.  There must have been 20+ gardeners there at various times during the late afternoon and evening, helping with the harvesting and planting.  As the season progresses and more vegetables are ready to harvest, Barbara will call her list of those in need and tell them they can come pick up produce on Thursday evenings.  Last year, up to 70 people came to pick up fresh produce, representing up to 210 people in need of additional food.  Often, the master gardeners also provide some dishes prepared with the available produce.  Others in the area with extra produce also bring it to Barbara, and she gives it away on Thursday evenings along with the produce from the on-site gardens, or finds another home for it if it’s too much or not appropriate for the Thursday night give-aways.


The next day, we helped with gardening at the Maine Veterans’ Home in South Paris.  One of the residents there wanted a garden, so master gardeners planted a moderate-sized vegetable garden and several blueberry bushes under the watchful eye of this resident.  We helped weed and mulch.  The produce from the garden is weighed and supplied to the Veterans’ Home kitchen to incorporate into their meals, and the staff appreciate taking what can’t be used by the kitchen.

If you want to Plant A Row for the Hungry, Barbara gives the following advice:  Plant larger amounts of fewer, commonly used vegetables and/or fruits.  For Maine, Barbara recommends cantaloupe (fresh fruit is too expensive for many to afford), carrots (they store well), green beans (give a great yield), onions (they’re expensive to buy), broccoli and cabbage (store well and are versatile), cucumbers, chard, beet greens and beets, tomatoes.  Tailor what you grow to what people in your area like to use.  Avoid “strange” crops (yellow tomatoes, for example).

Letter Carrier's Food Drive

Remember the Saturday in May when people all over the country left nonperishable food by their mailboxes as part of the annual Stamp Out Hunger Food Drive run by the National Association of Letter Carriers (NALC)?  It is said to be "the largest one-day food drive in the nation and probably the world," and it involves many more people in giving than other types of food drives.

This year, the NALC expects total donations collected along postal routes since the drive began 18 years ago to exceed 1 billion pounds.

Do you ever wonder what happens to that food?  It goes to local food banks or pantries to be sorted and then made available to those who need it.  This May, Carolyn helped sort food that came to Kalamazoo Loaves & Fishes, a food bank in Kalamazoo, MI. 

The letter carriers in the Kalamazoo area had handed out paper sacks to each of the houses on their routes, collected the filled bags on May 8, and brought the food to the Loaves & Fishes warehouse. Over 60,000 pounds of food was collected.  This may sound large, but that total

• was only about 60% of the total collected in last year's drive.  Perhaps the rainy weather or the poor economy accounted for the drop.
• is equivalent to only a small portion (a few weeks' supply) of the amount Loaves & Fishes gives out each year.

One benefit of the NALC Food Drive is the wide variety of food collected, which is really appreciated by the food pantry clients.  For example, the usual emergency food distribution system doesn’t normally get beets (or sauerkraut or sardines or salmon or clam chowder) because only a few people like them.  But a few cans of these more unusual items gives someone who likes these items a welcome change from corn, peas, and beans.

At the Loaves & Fishes warehouse, about 7 volunteers (ranging from college age to well past retirement age) checked donated food to make sure it wasn't damaged, leaking, or otherwise unacceptable.  Then they sorted the food into boxes labeled “fruit, “canned meat," “vegetables," “beans," etc.

Over the course of 3 hours, they sorted the food from 4 really big bins, and filled several pallet-loads of boxes!  Nevertheless, there will be many more days of sorting before all of the food from the Letter Carrier’s Food Drive is sorted.  The boxes of categorized food will be sent to food pantries throughout the Kalamazoo area to help fulfill the needs of their clients through the summer months.

Where is your food bank?

Do you know which food bank services emergency food assistance programs in your area?  Here's how you can find out: