Basic Needs Ministry This is a typical plan Food Bank - Monday - February 12 - The Goal: 3,000 pounds of product It begins early Monday morning by checking the inventory on the Internet and writing a "wish list." This is like the normal household grocery list, except the food on the inventory sheet may not be available. The Plan: This is like the games called Beat the Clock or Olympic Shopping. Going in, I have no idea what and how much will be available and what all the prices will be. The card carrying pantry shopper should expect to have or take no more than 2-3 minutes to look at the price sheets the warehouse staff are working with and make buying decisions. Luckily they don’t change too much from week to week. WRAL is calling for 60 degrees and dry. The truck owner loads first and the owner needs to tell me what his load limit will be and watch the weight/volume headed out to his truck – 83 cases of 16 oz. 24 count bottles (67 cases of 20 oz. 24 count bottles) liquid on Aisle 1 should weigh close to a ton. Floor Rule: Don't go in the warehouse until it is your assigned time. NO open toe shoes. We may have two carts and four people on the floor at any one time. Name tags go to the four strongest and fastest. Others wait inside by the door behind the line. We may start on the floor at 10:30 and our dry goods must be weighed and invoiced by 11 and then into and out of the cooler and freezer by 11:25, and finished paying by 11:30. Now, on with the game. The game plan is to have the three strongest plus the agency shopper take two of the largest carts and start loading one cart in the first aisle until it is full. Essentially bulk loads of drinks and gallon jars of pickles. The two then take the cart to the scale, have everything weighed and billed. The scale man will tell them what to load on the scale and lift off as he weighs and prepares our invoice. If the cart is all one product, or if the products are stacked straight up and down, it will go easier and quicker. Always ask to weigh one of a uniformly packaged item and then simply multiply the count. It sure beats the unloading, weighing, and reloading of an entire load. The two can then roll the cart out and any spare folks that we may have available should help load it in the truck. If we have enough drivers and shoppers, the vehicles may leave as soon as they are loaded. The card carrying shopper stays on the floor and continues loading the second cart with the fourth shopper, starts rolling it across the scale, and sends it out for the loading into the truck, with the hope that the first one or two shoppers can get back inside and can help finish shopping. As the carts come back on the floor, they just line up for reloading. Verify prices as you cross the scale to be sure there were no shopping errors, which would drain your account unexpectedly. If we don't have enough drivers to unload immedaitely, load anyone's car that will be driving down after work with dry goods, park it on the street, and load the frozen in the last vehicles that will deliver immediately. The drive time is 20 minutes. Car trunks can frequently carry 6 banana boxes, or more, of frozen food or bread. Set four into the trunk on the floor and dump 2 over the top and scattered them so you can still get a freezer balnket between the food and the trunk lid. Usually you can put 8 in the back seat (or 5 and 9) (700 pounds) and get the yogurt (102 pounds) in around those without overloading. Continue until 11:00. At 11, we must be ready to go in and take stuff out of the cooler and the freezer. We need to be out of the cooler and freezer and off the scale by 11:25 and at the pay office before 11:30. Cooler-hopefully we can pull out 17 cartons of yogurt. Freezer - We usually need to pack and pull out 14-22 boxes of meats. We target higher dollar items that our folks cannot afford to buy, even using food stamps. We do not overly pay for any potatoes and inexpensive items – pig toes/knuckles/split feet, fat chucks, sweet potatoes, mashed potatoes, etc. All cooler and frozen products must be covered with freezer blankets during delivery. If they were not brought along, they must be purchased before the vehicle leaves the bank.. The last car should be loaded by 11:50 and all should be rolling. Go south on Wolfpack, turn left to Capital, turn right and go over bridge, then take ramp to I-440. Turn off on I-40 East to Benson, take Exit 312 and turn right on NC 42, turn left at Bojangle's - go into back yard warehouse district to D96 - Basic Needs sign by door. Unload frozen and refrigerated first. These must be placed in appropriate freezer or refrigerator units. Dry goods may be stacked and they will be shelved by the crew at 6 p.m.
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