Basic Needs Ministry & Cleveland Township Emergency Food Pantry Update We had wonderful volunteers this week and served a lot of food-see below. Besides free food, on Saturday, we helped a girl scout project by providing over 700 books for East Clayton Elementary for an early reading program boost, provided clothing for the Soroptimist professional clothing project in Raleigh which helps folks get professional jobs by wearing professional clothing, belts for Selma Elementary School trying to keep the kids pants off the floor, and provided for 11 individuals that 4 agencies sent over to get $3,225.00 worth of clothing (mall value). We recovered some gift certificates that were blank and expired several years ago as someone tried to use them. That said, it’s now time to buy and bring in another 3,000 pounds of food and rehang a couple hundred clothing items. We are trying to put together a team of volunteer shoppers to get food from the Food Bank and Food Shuttle in Raleigh and bring it to the warehouse during the week. Total time needed per trip has been running 3 hours. It would solve the problem with my boss who says I can’t continue taking time off work and my car won’t hold enough food for the number of people we serve weekly anyway. The team would have only three people per trip for the Food Bank on Monday, one for the Food Shuttle midweek, and one for the Food Bank on Friday and backups for each. Catherine can take the bow at this point, because she went to the Food Shuttle and scored points with the folks in charge of getting us the food. Beginning February 1, we will limit service to once weekly and try a scheduling program to eliminate waiting times. Our new 20 cu. ft. chest freezer failed Saturday. Before temperatures climbed to unsafe levels we got the food handed out or moved without loss. We are hoping to repair or replace it within a week. All Food Bank Partner Agencies must record demographic information on every family using the food pantry in March. Hopefully, we will be on computer instead of paper records by then. On Monday, January 22, 2007, the pantry provided food to: 9 households/housing units, which may have multiple families living together 9 identified families 41 individuals Of those, 1 family returned that was served 2 days earlier. NOTE: This was typically providing the family with 320-480 pounds of food per week. Tome spent in handing out the food – 2 ¼ hours Time open – 3 hours On Saturday January 28, 2007, the pantry supplied food to: 21 households/housing units, which may have multiple families living together 22 identified families 86 individuals Of those, 2 families returned that were served 5 days earlier. NOTE: This was typically providing the family with 320-480 pounds of food per week. Time spent in handing out the food – 5 ½ hours Time open – 9 hours Longest wait was probably 1 hour Limiting service to one time per week would reduce the pantry service time by ¾ hour and could eliminate 30 minutes of the wait time for clients. That would leave us 5 hours of time, already committed, to use, before we had to add another evening or eliminate giving the clients some choice of food. The concept of emergency food service is something each pantry has to deal with, but many are limiting service to once a month. Fraud, out of area, or no ID who were served food on these dates: 1 family with 2 individuals from Wake County 2 families with 12 people with no ID or out of area ID, but claiming area residency Ran out of almost everything sold on the shelves in the center of the grocery store and regular meat case. Still have some candy, totillas, potatoes, cookies, cup of soup, bread, vegan sauces, and sandwich/prepared foods. |