Food Bank Orientation - Garcia Family

Today we attended the Food Bank at Freedom Ministry in Plainfield.  Attending were the Garcia Family including Ally, Humberto and Isabela.  Along with this family I attended as well.  The event was very helpful in terms of our orientation.  Tom and his wife Atia spent a good amount of time explaining how the event was organized.

Here are some of the observations we made about the food bank operation:

• Food Bank clients - about 150 people attended.  The majority were repeat clients and are well known by the workers.  The primary communication vehicle used in notifying clients is word of mouth.  Many new clients come via current client group.  Client demographics were 80% women, average age 50, 60% hispanic
• Food Bank volunteers - the ministry is led by Tom and Atia Hunter, members of Freedom Ministry.  The volunteer group is supported by the client group, about half the volunteers are clients.  The other half of the volunteers are recruited by MEETUP.COM.  This combination seems to provide needed volunteer workers though it is expected their is some volunteer fatigue present as well.
• Volunteer Roles - the key volunteer roles include :  Leader (Tommy), Registrant (Atia), Floor Leader (Humberto) Prayer Warrior (Jeff), Greeter (?) who hands out tickets, and misc workers to move food ( three needed)
• Hours of Operation - 7am to 11am.  Most of the food was given out by 9am.  Clients start showing at 2:30 am to ensure full food basket.  At 7am when we arrived there was a full church plus standing room only.  All meat was gone by 8:15 so one third of the clients did not get meat (chicken).
• Team member orientation process completed - Garcias (3), R. Power, A. Stewart.  Team member orientations to be completed - Mert, Dennis, Jack, Doug, Karen/Don and Dan.  Suggested orientation schedule:  Mert/Dennis/Doug - December 13, Don and Dan December 20 and finally Jack F 2nd Saturday in January.  Please rsvp your availability.  We want all team members to work one food bank prior to next meeting in January
•  Food Operation and distribution - the food donations are primarily provided by the government.  FM gets one delivery per month based upon the registrations turned in from prior activity of the bank.  Food is provided free of charge but is not adequate to meet the needs of the clients.  Some of the food items are available to be purchased when funds are available.  The delivery cost could be mitigated if a truck and workers were available.  Kelly Tancredi gave us 8 bags of groceries donated by a local congregation.  Carolyn gave a turkey and side items.
• Team member ideas to support the Food Bank - 1) Provide donations of food, 2) cook a meal for all clients at LCC (Isabela idea), 3) Get truck and volunteers to pick up the food saving the cost to the FM of delivery, 4) adopt a family in which LCC members provide food grants to specific families in food bank a couple times a year.  Adopted familes could be served by the paired LCC family at the dinner, 5) Improve the efficiency of the bank process eliminating the need to come early, notification of food bank clients about hours of operation, 6) Support drug and alcohol rehabilitation orientation resource at the Food Bank, 7) Provide a Christmas Tree at LCC with wish list items for clients children or grandchildren of food bank from which LCC members can select.