Pandemic At The Food Pantry

That's just a light-hearted title. We're all fine.
Some of you may remember that I help my parents run a food pantry. I thought I'd entertain myself by blogging our pandemic-preparedness efforts.

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Let's start by introducing the food pantry. It's located in a luxurious suite of rooms in my church basement, furnished with shelving you might charitably call 'assorted,' and a herd of freezers and fridges, the oldest of which is about 50 years old.

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Clients can visit once a month. They get about 30 items, each given in amounts to serve their whole household. Hhld sizes vary from 1 to 10. The most I remember was 15: a lady took in her aging mom and her divorced daughter/kids, + then the neighbor's furnace broke.

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We get our food from the regional food bank, including the federal surplus commodities program ('commodities' are raw materials; gov buys them and has them processed for us to distribute). Food drives like those at your local bank/school/etc. couldn't BEGIN to supply us.

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We are open twice a week (Tuesday & Saturday 10-noon). Each time, we serve an average of 25-30 households; all-time low was 3 on Sat. after Xmas, all-time high was 70+ on Tuesday before Thanksgiving.
9 days open a month x 25 hhlds x 30 items = 6,750 cans/boxes/jars

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We pay a Shared Handling Fee to the regional food bank of 19 cents per pound for most food, 9 cents per pound for fresh produce, and 0 for bread and for ice cream. (There's a large Edy's plant in town.) We place orders twice a week, typically 250 lbs meat,

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125 lbs salvage, plus bread and ice cream. It's my job to go to the regional food bank twice a week to pick up our order.
Frozen meat is already selected for us, and you get whatever--in extreme cases you can reject part of it, such as the time they gave us 30 beef hearts.
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NOBODY needs 30 beef hearts--but one of my favorite things about the food pantry is that no matter what weirdo item we get hold of, someone comes along who is psyched to get it.
Salvage is canned/boxed/jarred foods that came from truck accidents, overstock, etc.
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Dented cans, crushed cereal boxes, and jars of salsa that obviously had another jar break open and drench them (those we do wash off). I pick through the bins of those things and see what I can find that we need. Soup is easy to come by these days, but nothing else.

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Buns and from the big commercial bakeries (we have 2 in town) are available, and bakery goods from the grocery store deli sections as well. We try to get enough , , , etc. to give every client a dessert as well as a loaf of bread, and buns if desired.

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Our clients also receive a couple of inches of laundry soap in a plastic water bottle (a crew of older ladies pour out jumbo size liquid into pitchers, then fill bottles up to a line that gives you 2 loads of laundry) and a second bottle with dish soap.

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If you visited our food pantry last week, you would get:
[See if you can spot the government surplus commodities!]
1. Dried split peas
2. Your choice of Grits or Rice
3. Choice of Spaghetti sauce or Peanut butter
4. Choice of Betty Crocker au gratin potatoes or Stuffing

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5. Canned pears
6. Choice of canned corn or mixed veg
7. Applesauce
8. Choice of egg noodles or spaghetti
9. Choice of soup: Bean w/bacon, Gumbo or Potato
10. Choice of canned potatoes or diced tomatoes
11. Dried black beans or dried pinto beans
12. Dried navy beans

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13. Canned garbanzo beans
14. Choice of snack: Nature Valley bars, Bugles, saltines or pistachios
15. Choice of cereal: Wheat Chex, Dippin Dots cereal (which apparently is a thing), Cinnamon Toast Crunch, Corn flakes or Frosted Flakes

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16. Bakery dessert
17. Hamburger or hot dog buns
18. Loaf of bread, white or wheat
19. Dish soap
20. Laundry soap
21. Fresh potatoes
22. Fresh oranges
23. Your choice of frozen chicken
24. Your choice of frozen pork
25. Your choice of frozen beef
26. Fresh eggs

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27. Your choice of frozen turkey, fish or lamb
28. Boneless pork chops
29. Pork loin
30. Choice of ice cream: Wonder Woman Golden Lasso Twirl or Frozen Magical Mint Snowflake

That's it.
Now you see if you can carry it all to your car in one trip
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Hmmm...how to do this when you can't stand within 6 feet of another person? Indoors? When everyone is supposed to sign a form attesting that their income is below a certain level, but then other people have to touch the pen and the form?


17/infinity

You can't.
So what DO we do?

I thought we could do curbside service. We are required by the government commodities program to offer our clients choices. We could take a clipboard and ask them what they wanted, then check it off ourselves. They could stay in their cars.
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Mom thought we could let people into the building, but have them stand far apart, and send them through the line one at a time, spaced out.

But a nurse who belongs to the church was firmly in favor of curbside service. And the gov waived the choice requirement.

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We started planning on Thursday, so we didn't have a lot of time. It pained us to reduce the quality of service, but it only had to be once. After Saturday's hours, we could retool the plan for next week. So this morning, Dad posted outside with a clipboard...

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...to take names. The registrar could take the list later and fill out the forms. (Each client just has one form for the whole year, which has 12 blanks to sign.) Our pastor said he'd vouch for us if anyone gave us trouble about not having people sign the forms.

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Our crew indoors, who usually directly serve the clients, pre-bagged food for each household that would be enough to serve 8 people. Smaller households could get more meals out of it; larger households would at least get something.

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Today's food:
1. Spaghetti sauce
2. Peanut butter
3. Either Corn or Mixed veg
4. Either canned potatoes or diced tomatoes
5. Applesauce or canned pears
6. Spaghetti
7. Cereal
8. Rice
9. Loaf of bread
10. Fresh oranges
11. Fresh potatoes
12. Dish soap
13. Laundry soap

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14. 1 package of hot dog or hamburger buns (random)
15. 4 lbs. chicken thighs, frozen
16. Boneless pork chops
17. 1 package beef (stew meat, a roast, or ground beef)
18. 1 dozen eggs

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We meant to give ice cream, too, but were in too big of a hurry. (You can't take it out of the freezer in advance; it melts.) Then, after we knocked ourselves out to get through the line that was there when we opened, only 4 more people showed up for the second hour

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If you compare last week's menu to today's, you'll see that today's clients mostly missed out on a bunch of dried beans. (Hey, remember the tariff war? Beans were hit hard.) This is because we already knew nobody wants them. And it ain't like they're gonna spoil.

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So, while I'm thinking about it, the commodities are:
All beans and peas - Spaghetti - Sauce - Rice - Noodles - Canned potatoes - Diced tomatoes - Peanut butter - Canned pears - Mixed veg - Fresh potatoes - Oranges - Pork chops and loins - Pistachios - Eggs

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One reason we hurried so fast was that our nurse said our total interaction with each client should be limited to 2 minutes.
That's too fast to ask anyone what they want.

But we still feel we can improve our service next week. If you have any ideas, please post!

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The one thing I think we might do is make small bags for households of 1-3, then large ones for larger households. We should have time to ask just that *one* question.

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PLOT TWIST: Regional food bank says that for now, we'll be limited to 100 lbs. meat and 100 lbs. salvage on each visit. I don't know how America's mass stock-up is affecting the amount of food that grocery stores donate, but I'm sure it will.

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Monday 16 March: Trip to regional food bank. 100 lbs of meat is half what we usually get, but there was a nice big box of 25 or 30 pork tenderloins pre-seasoned in 3 different flavors--peppercorn, teriyaki & Italian--plus a lone lemon garlic. Those will be nice to hand out.
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We won't be using them tomorrow, though. As Mom (who is in charge of the meat department) says, you can't just give people a flavored item without asking what they want.
The biggest change we'll be making is to include a carton of ice cream for each household.

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I also was limited to 100 lbs of salvage today; that meant about 100 cans, 8 boxes of cereal. Entree items are VERY hard to come by, so I grabbed a random Hamburger Helper and a microwave mac & cheese; we have to save up like this for weeks to get enough for 1 day.

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I usually like to get Campbell's Chunky soups, because when you're poor that's a little luxury, but they weigh more, so I stuck to regular condensed soups. Since we can't offer choices, I selected popular flavors: tomato, chicken noodle, veg/veg beef.

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Usually, when the client is looking at the shelf, we have 2 or maybe 3 flavors for them to pick from, and they can mix and match up to enough for their house [1 can per 2 people. Nobody eats soup this way, but it's fairest & easiest to go by the servings on the label].
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You wouldn't BELIEVE how many flavors of soup there are. We have a storage closet full of odd flavors [gumbo, BBQ chicken, split pea, tomato rice, white chili, French onion, cream of bacon] waiting to finally accumulate enough to become one of the choices we offer.
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Tuesday 17 March
Today's food:
1. Spaghetti sauce
2. Peanut butter
3. Either Corn or Mixed veg
4. Either canned potatoes or diced tomatoes
5. Applesauce or canned pears
6. Spaghetti
7. Cereal
8. Rice
9. Loaf of bread
10. Fresh apples
11. Fresh potatoes
[continued]

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12. Dish soap
13. Laundry soap
14. 1 whole chicken
15. Boneless pork chops
16. Canned salmon or tuna
17. 1 dozen eggs
18. Edy's Grand Ice Cream, 'Frozen II Magical Mint Snowflake' flavor

Yay, ice cream!

38/infinity

We put big signs on the building doors yesterday:

FOOD PANTRY OPEN
Curbside Service
Please Stay In Your Car
Walkers/Bikers Welcome
(Just don't stand in line in the street)
We regret that we cannot offer you choices as we usually do. Thank You for your understanding.

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We served 30 households today. I helped prep but left before we opened; I'm told it all went smoothly.

One of our problems is volunteer labor. The medical pros among the church members recommended that nobody over 60 work at the food pantry during the pandemic...

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...but that leaves us with a grand total of 3 people! The kids aren't in school, but that means we have no centralized way to spread the word. (Our food pantry is supported by 2 Methodist churches, a public elementary school, and a Lutheran church and K-8 school.)

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The churches are closed, too, of course. Social media seems like the obvious way to get hold of people, but how? There's not a lot of adults butting in to teens' conversations online. Let me know if you have ideas.

Meanwhile, the senior citizens are still working.

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PLOT TWIST (Good):
The requirement that clients sign their registration form has been waived by the government, as long as we keep the usual records that they visited.

I'll quickly go over what records we keep.

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Each January we start a fresh registration sheet for each person who comes to our food pantry, with their name, address, number in the household, and the age and gender of each person in the household. The person who actually comes to the food pantry must show ID

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and proof of address. If they don't have it the first time, they must bring it the second time or not be served. Proof of address is just a lease, bill, etc. pre-printed with the name and address they gave us. (You can't send yourself a postcard to your friend's house

45/infin

to try to get into our service area. ) We serve the ZIP code where the church is located, a middle-class/lower-middle-class area. We serve everybody one time, and give out-of-ZIP clients a list of the food pantries that serve their area.
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In ordinary times, OOZ (out-of-ZIP) clients may come once a month and receive just government commodities, and in-ZIP clients may come once a month for full service (including soaps, fresh bakery, produce and dairy products if we have any). Now of course it's changed
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Each month, the person from that household who visits must sign the back of the registration form to attest that their income is within the guidelines. The data on ages of household members is reported to the gov: how many kids, adults and seniors receive food assistance.
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We keep it as simple as we can; we could report race of clients if we wanted to supply a little more info to the gov, but we don't. The report would just say "540 total persons served in May, of which X were white, Y were black, etc." Never anything specific to indiv.

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FWIW, everybody, the income guidelines are higher than you probably think, because anybody can have a major medical or major appliance emergency and need help for a short time. Never hesitate to use your local food pantry. Then, when you're rich again, make a donation.

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PLOT TWIST:
Regional food bank already limited us to 100 lbs of meat + 100 lbs of salvage per visit. We're allowed 2 visits per week (bc we're open twice a week).
Starting now,
all agencies are limited to ONE visit per week for the near future.

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This leaves us with 25% of the meat we usually receive in a week. We already cut back to 3 meats per household instead of 4 or 5.

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Because you all stocked up for the lockdown/quarantine, which was NOT a bad thing, the grocery stores have found good homes for all the food they had on hand.
All I ask is that you USE the fresh foods you bought. Don't waste them.

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Prep today for Saturday's open hours.
Got a load of fresh eggs, fresh milk, fresh pears and fresh oranges from the regional food bank; these were all gov surplus commodities.
New plan for pre-bagging the dry goods will accommodate different family sizes (next tweet).
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Each household will get a one-size-fits all bag with rice, cereal, pasta, a small jar of peanut butter, and a loaf of bread.
Then we are making up bags with cans, all of which serve 3 people: pasta sauce, 2 different vegetables, and 1 can of fruit.
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Households of 1 to 3 people will get one bag of cans, households of 4 to 6 will get two of these bags, and households of 7 to 9 will get three of them.

They'll all get milk, eggs, fresh fruit, a carton of ice cream, pork chops and chicken drumsticks.

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Tonight:
Mom and Dad calculating how to distribute the milk tomorrow. We have 81 half gallons with a sell-by date of March 24 (next Tues), and 36 quarts with a sell-by date of April 6. Decided household of 1-4 gets half gallon and 5+ gets half gallon plus quart.

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Open hours this morning. Served 23 households between 10:00 and 10:30, and another 8 between then and noon. Normally there is a lineup at the door when we open, but it takes the first person 15 minutes to get through the whole process; now, they're done in 5.
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Monday morning trip to regional food bank.
My Monday helper Wendy and I scored one (1) box of Pasta Roni; 100 lbs of soup (mostly chicken noodle, some veg beef); 30 loaves of bread; 26 heads of lettuce; 2 cases of fresh tomatoes; 15 or 20 lbs onions; 100 lbs meat.
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We also got 36 cartons of Wonder Woman 'Golden Lasso Twirl' ice cream (the golden lasso is represented by a caramel swirl). There were no commodities available this morning except fresh pears.
TIP: Fresh pears look more beat up than they actually are. Don't give up on them.

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Governor locked down state until April 7. Regional food bank will operate with skeleton staff, some from home. We're going to pick up our latest commodity allotment tomorrow afternoon instead of later in the week. (Not sure what difference that makes.)
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This allotment will be:
Canned diced tomatoes (which we already have)
Canned sliced potatoes (which we already have)
Canned peaches (woot! fruit!)
Frozen pork roasts (Yay! We're low on meat and will soon have to go to 2 per household instead of 3)

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I was wrong; that's our next allotment, scheduled for 2 weeks from today, after the stay-at-home order is supposed to expire. (It probably won't, but we'll still get the food.)
Today's was frozen orange juice, frozen eggs and canned corn, all of which were welcome!

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Tues. 24 March
Today's food:
1. Spaghetti sauce
2. Peanut butter
3. Either Corn or Mixed veg
4. Either canned potatoes or diced tomatoes
5. Applesauce or canned pears
6. Spaghetti
7. Cereal
8. Rice
9. Loaf of bread
10. Fresh oranges
[continued]

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11. 2 tomatoes (for household of 1-3), lettuce (for 4-6) or both (for 7+)
12. Dish soap
13. Laundry soap
14.-16. Frozen meat (2 pork, 1 miscellaneous)
17. 1 dozen eggs
18. Edy's Grand Ice Cream, 'Frozen II Magical Mint Snowflake' or 'Wonder Woman Golden Lasso Twirl'
65/infinity

During today's open hours, we served 21 households. I thought we might be busier because the stay-at-home order starts at 11:59 PM today, and our clients might fear we'd be closed for the rest of the month. (We're not.)
We used 9 volunteers, including my family.

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My parents and I, and my mom's two sisters, all have been extensively exposed to each other, so we're staying on the job. During downtime today, Mom and I tried to talk my aunts out of going to the post office. They're 80 and 90. IDK if it worked.
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See, they belong to a club that takes day trips, and they need to mail these papers to another club member ABOUT NEXT YEAR'S TRIPS. (It's a big stack of papers, so they have to have it weighed to pay postage.) This evidently cannot wait 2 weeks.
They're very conscientious.

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Saturday's Food menu:
1. Spaghetti sauce
2. Peanut butter
3. Either Corn or Mixed veg
4. Either canned potatoes or diced tomatoes
5. Applesauce or canned pears
6. Spaghetti
7. Cereal
8. Rice
9. Loaf of bread
10. Fresh apples
[continued]

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11. Fresh red pears
12. Dish soap
13. Laundry soap
14.-16. Frozen meat (2 pork, 1 miscellaneous)
17. 1 dozen eggs for households of 1-3; 2 dozen for 4+
18. Edy's Grand Ice Cream, 'Frozen II Magical Mint Snowflake' or 'Wonder Woman Golden Lasso Twirl'
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We served about 34 households. I was supposed to be adding tomatoes to each household's food, but the tomatoes turned out to be growing a bit of mold. So that didn't happen. We should have given them all away last Tuesday; they're not durable and I knew that.
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I made the weekly trip to the regional food bank this morning. They've furloughed several employees (still being paid, I think) for the duration of the governor's stay-at-home order (set to expire April 7), and arranged our commodity pickups for before & after the order.
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The National Guard is helping the regional food bank; last week they helped pre-pack boxes of food for the Saturday distribution. (Usually everyone brings their own box, lines up outside, and walks in one door of the warehouse, gets food & goes out another.)
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They gave out 700 boxes via drive-up service. This was up somewhat (I think normal is 400-500). Our business hasn't increased much at all; we're holding steady at around 30-35 households each day we're open. February was down a bit to 25-30, prob bc tax refunds.

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@/Yashar posted pics of the line for the Pittsburgh food bank; it apparently was a special event and they seem to have served north of 1500 customers. Pittsburgh is bigger than our town fwiw
75/infinity https://twitter.com/yashar/status/1244713476624269312?s=20

I tried to get enough bread for Tuesday and Saturday, but there were only 4 loaves, so I went with kaiser rolls, sesame seed buns and slider buns. About 10% of what I looked through was moldy, squashed or mouse-chewed. The guy who weighed my food out told me (cont'd)
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the last time they got any bread was a week and a half ago. They've been putting it out for the agency shoppers (that's me) a little at a time, and what I went through today was the last. They don't have any more.

77/infinity

We also got our weekly 100 lbs of meat today: 20 lbs chicken drumsticks and 80 lbs of ground beef, in GIANT 10-lb logs. Mom will divide them in the church kitchen, using the usual safe food handling techniques (medical-grade gloves not required), and they'll go FAR.
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Open hours this morning, last day of the month. Served about 33 households; 4 of them had already come once in March, so Dad, taking names at the curbside, told them they could come back another day or count today's visit as their April visit. 3 stayed, saving a trip.
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In the afternoon, Mom divided the ground beef (thawed overnight in the refrigerator) into one-pound portions. Dad helped by writing "1 LB GR BF" on all 77 freezer bags

The guys at the regional food bank said by next week, the only meat available will be chicken.
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Tomorrow the regional food bank expects a truckload of government surplus commodities. They don't know what it will be, but we will be allowed to come and take a share of it. It may be fresh pears, oranges, apples, potatoes, eggs, milk, ??? Fingers crossed

81/infinity

Our commodity allotment was 36 gallons of skim milk, enough for everyone who comes this Saturday. The regional food bank expects another 2-3 trucks so we will be going back on Monday.

82/infinity

My sister (a teacher) is going to help on Tuesdays and Saturdays when we're open, so I've been laid off
I'll still be making the trip to the regional food bank to shop for salvage on Mondays.

83/infinity

(About 5 years ago, the regional food bank added a second facility--formerly the commissary for a restaurant chain--to handle government surplus commodities. Dad will go there Monday morning while I'm at the original food bank location)

84/infinity

Saturday's Food menu:
1. Spaghetti sauce
2. Peanut butter
3. Either Corn or Mixed veg
4. Either canned potatoes or diced tomatoes
5. Applesauce or canned pears
6. Spaghetti
7. Cereal
8. Rice
9. Kaiser, sesame seed or slider buns
10. Fresh oranges
[continued]

85/infinity

11. Fresh red pears
12. Dish soap
13. Laundry soap
14.-15. Frozen meat
16. Stew/soup kit: ham bone/pieces, carrots, potatoes, onions, with recipe [veg donated by local restaurant ]
17. 1 gallon skim milk
18. Ice Cream [not chicken] Drumsticks, 2 per person in house

86/infinity

Open as usual from 10 AM to noon Saturday.
First time open for the month is usually a little busier, and we served 46 households.
We're trying to have a single team of volunteers work every day we're open, or at least stick to a pool of 12 or 13 to work the ~10 positions.

87/inf

Church members supplied us with home-sewn cloth masks.
Mom bought red duct tape to make marks on the floor, so that our volunteers stay the required 6 feet apart. Some are better at this than others The impulse to hobnob is strong

88/infinity

PLOT TWIST: At no point during the last week was Dad able to order bread or salvage dry (canned/boxed/jarred) goods from the regional food bank. (Orders are placed via Shopify.) Wondered what I'd find when I arrived Monday morning.

89/infinity

Monday morning visit to regional food bank. New procedure: instead of walking in through the office, now I go through a door leading directly into the warehouse. Gloves are provided. Starting last week, only one shopper (me) is allowed in the warehouse at a time.

90/infinity

There was one lone tower of bread (it comes from the bakery in large flat stacking trays that hold 12 loaves) standing majestically in the open space where usually there are 5 or 10. I took the top 5 trays in the stack, enough for 30 households Tuesday and 30 Sat.

91/infinity

Then I looked again at my copy of the order we'd placed. No bread. So I stacked the darn things up again. The guy working asked me why and I said we hadn't been able to order bread--or salvage either. He said he'd check with the lady in the office.

92/infinity

Meanwhile I had a look at the produce. I scored a box of cucumbers (maybe 40 pounds) that looked pretty good. Back comes the guy. He said he'd be allowed to write in 50 lbs bread and 100 lbs salvage for me. Back to the bread stack!

93/infinity

The salvage was mostly soup as usual. I did get about 12 packets of ramen, 1 bag of rice, and 2 boxes of mac & cheese. Our meat was nice stuff, too, not the chicken the last guy was afraid they'd be down to.
Decided not to risk the cucumbers going bad by Saturday;

94/infinity

instead made kits with cucumbers, onions and my aunt's recipe for cucumber salad. (Slice very thin; mix 1 c Miracle Whip & 1 c sugar, then add 1 c white vinegar til milky. Pour over veg and refrigerate. Lasts up to 2 weeks in fridge and you can keep adding more veg.)

95/inf

Tuesday's Food menu:
1. Spaghetti sauce
2. Peanut butter
3. Either Corn or Mixed veg
4. Either canned potatoes or diced tomatoes
5. Applesauce or canned pears
6. Spaghetti
7. Cereal
8. Rice
9. Loaf of bread
10. Cucumber salad kit
[continued]

96/infinity

11. Dish soap
12. Laundry soap
13. Frozen egg mix [this is just cracked raw eggs in a carton, like restaurants use]
14. Half gallon orange juice
15. Frozen pork loin roast
16. Ground beef or (when that ran out) chicken drumsticks
17. 1 gallon skim milk
18. Ice cream

97/infinity

Tuesday, April 7 open hours: served 46 households. Almost out of milk and orange juice.

We served noticeably more people last year during the autoworkers' strike, but that resolved by midwinter, and we have not seen a change yet due to the pandemic.

98/infinity

Wed. April 8: Dad made the trip to the regional food bank's government-commodities facility to get our latest allotment. (This happens every couple of weeks throughout the year. We get bulk quantities of 4 different random foods; they send us an email telling us what.)
99/infin

Commodities Haul:
-27 cases (24 cans in a case) of canned kidney beans
-25 cases of tomato soup [Guess I'll be sticking to vegetable & chicken noodle next Monday ]
-25 cases of canned pears
-11 cases of pre-cooked strips of chicken (not breaded). This was supposed...

100/infin

to be whole chickens, but J (the guy who works at the commodities warehouse) couldn't get to them. This happens a lot when your walk-in freezer is the size of a 3-bedroom house: entire pallets of stuff end up in front of other stuff. We're OK with the strips though

101/inf

I almost forgot--we also got 5 cases of fresh oranges and 36 gallons of skim milk.
We have 30 loaves of bread left (which is actually more than I expected) and a little milk.

So this Saturday, only the first 30 households will get bread. But we have milk for 40+.

/102

Food Pantry Humor

103/infinity https://twitter.com/cmonstah/status/1248812580170170369?s=20

Saturday, April 4th: Served 48 households. Gave away the last of the frozen egg mix. Meat is almost gone: we're down to the recipe-ready chicken strips, plus a motley assortment of canned meats I've gathered a few at a time. We'll get 100 lbs of meat tomorrow...

104/infinity

...but that's only enough to give one meat per household this week. Buying meat from the grocery is not an option. It would cost $100 just to get a pack of crummy off-brand hot dogs for each household. We don't have anything like that kind of money.

105/infinity

It's why we stick to salvage foods (19 cents per pound). "Purchased product" Spaghetti-O's from the regional food bank are $7.48 a case. If I picked dented cans of Spaghetti-O's out of the salvage bins, that 13-pound case would cost $2.47.

106/infinity

My priority list for tomorrow at the food bank:
1. Cereal, if they have any
2. Canned meats
3. Canned fruits (except pears, which we just got via USDA commodities)
4. Canned veg that we don't have
5. Spaghetti-O's
6. Chicken noodle or vegetable soup
In that order.

107/infinity

Monday, April 13 trip to regional food bank:
GOOD NEWS: The limit on salvage food has been lifted!
BAD NEWS: There was NO bread.
GOOD NEWS: I was able to find about 15 loaves amongst the Bakery Assorted (desserts, croissants and other things in your grocery's bakery dept.)

Tuesday's Food menu (April 14):
1. Spaghetti sauce
2. Peanut butter
3. Either Corn or Mixed veg
4. Either canned potatoes or diced tomatoes
5. Canned pears
6. Spaghetti
7. Cereal
8. Rice
9. Loaf of bread
10. Cherry tomatoes or small potatoes or mixed veg
[continued]

109/infinity

11. Dish soap
12. Laundry soap
13. Refrigerated scrambled egg mix
14. Butter
15. Salmon or chicken leg quarters
16. Recipe-ready chicken strips
17. 1 gallon skim milk
18. Ice cream (either Wonder Woman Golden Lasso Twirl or Big Gay Ice Cream cake batter)

110/infinity

Andy Slavitt posted this, and it inspired me to discuss food donations with you all. The blog gives mostly good advice, but what got my attention was the assertion that most food banks prefer whole wheat pasta and brown rice.
NO THEY DO NOT.
111/infinity
https://www.feedingamerica.org/hunger-blog/what-donate-food-bank-and-what-avoid

Whether good old starch-consuming Midwesterners or recent immigrants from Asia, NOBODY at our food pantry wants brown rice or whole wheat pasta.

Stick to nonperishable foods, as the blog says. Avoiding glass containers *is* helpful.
Now let's talk about what my people want.
112

If you try a new food and don't like it, you can make something else. For us poor people [I was on food stamps for years], it's a gamble we can't always afford.
The popular flavors are the ones you would think; for example, ranch or honey mustard dressing > vinaigrette.
113/inf

We don't always have staples in the house.
Cooking oil, salt, pepper, and the most popular spices are welcome. Sugar is popular, but comes in paper bags, which break/leak easily; give it directly to the food pantry that will hand it out, so it won't get knocked around.

114/inf

Poor people cannot afford to pick up a couple ingredients with which to cook a recipe.
That's why (other than being lazy like me ) complete pancake mix is MUCH more popular than the kind you have to add eggs and oil to.

115/infinity

Poor people buy cheaper cuts of meat, so it's nice to get barbecue sauce or other ingredients, like dry onion soup mix, that improve on meat or let us cook in crock pots. Hamburger/Tuna/Chicken Helper also goes over well.

116/infinity

This is just what it's like at my personal food pantry. YMMV. Always nice to call the food pantry and ask what they need. We've seen weird phases at the regional food bank. Once for a month or so there was cereal everywhere, and then there was the...

117/infinity

SUMMER OF THE PESTO CHICKEN: for wks we could get no frozen meat except this food-service product, which consisted of small pieces of chicken breast, already prepped with herbs. We tried some at home and the taste wasn't too strong to use in recipes if you rinsed it.
118/inf

PICKSHERS! YAY!
At the regional food bank, picking cans out of the salvage bins. Bins in the background left are nonfood items. Blue towers are the bread & buns. Scale for weighing out is in floor by red trash can. Overhead door for loading is off camera to right

119/inf

More about the photo above: The walled-off area is the offices and the 'grocery store.' Some churches or other groups don't handle food themselves, they give vouchers people can spend at this store. That's where the un-busted-looking food goes
120/infinity

Saturday open hours (April 18): Served just 32 households. This means our usual numbers have not increased due to the quarantine, at least not yet.
We got milk and butter through the commodities program Friday, and have some left for Tuesday

121/infinity

Monday morning trip to the regional food bank:
We were able to order 400 lbs frozen meat, since the 100-lb limit was lifted. I bet that limit will be back since the meatpacking plant shutdowns. Until then, Mom has several pork roasts, hams, etc. to thaw and slice.

122/infin

Mon. 13 April trip to food bank cont'd.
No bread, only "bakery assorted." I scraped up what I could find of bolillos, baguettes and sub rolls, that at least people could make sandwiches with. Tons of desserts I hated to pass up, but we're not made of money.

123/infinity

The guy who weighed our food out told me he expects they'll be down to just chicken by next week; that didn't happen last month so . He said that no dry salvage [dented cans/boxes] is coming in, but we'll be okay for a couple of weeks with what we've saved up.

124/infinity

annnnnd I just realized I skipped a week backward. Today is actually the 20th. Oops.

Dad got more milk & butter plus apples and oranges from the regional food bank's other facility that handles gov commodities, so we'll have enough for both tomorrow and Saturday.

125/infinity

Tuesday's Food menu (April 21):
1. Spaghetti sauce
2. Peanut butter
3. Canned chick peas
4. 2 cans of diced tomatoes
5. Canned pears
6. Pasta
7. Cereal (Lucky Charms!)
8. Rice (will run out & be replaced by pinto beans)
9. Bakery bread of some kind
[contd]

126/inf

10. Orange juice (single-serve cups)
11. Dish soap
12. Laundry soap
13. Apples
14. Butter
15. Chicken drumsticks
16. Chicken strips, fish, turkey meatloaf or ground turkey
17. 1 gallon milk
18. Ice cream (either Cherry Garcia or Magnum nondairy caramel bars)

127/infinity