Care and Share Food Bank

A Day at Care and Share

2012-02-16T13:28:00.000-08:00

Every day is fun and interesting at Care and Share. Yesterday was a good example.

I started the day by walking around the facility with a plate of cookies which I distributed to staff, agency shoppers, and volunteers. The Finance Committee met with our new CFO to review the numbers and talk through a few ideas. Rich Wood came by to talk about the upcoming Board meeting. While the Finance Committee and Rich Wood were here, Brittney Moore came by with at $75,000 check from El Pomar. As all that was happening we received a truckload of cauliflower. The cauliflower was beautiful, but it arrived in a dirty truck and we had to reject the load. I had lunch with Carol Odell from the Better Business Bureau to talk about customer service and how to improve our service to donors, agencies, and each other. We had an internal meeting to brainstorm the Thank You letters for Recipe for Hope – we plan to get them all personalized and mailed within 24 hours of the event. Our new CDO dropped by to give us her new employee paperwork. In between, I worked on preparing the board package for the upcoming meeting.

Cooking Matters

2012-01-27T12:53:00.000-08:00

At Care and Share, we are not just about getting food to people in need. We are about ending hunger. One way to do this is through education. We are teaching people how to prepare low-cost nutritious meals through our Cooking Matters program which is funded through Share Our Strength.

This very popular program draws in volunteers who are professional chefs and nutritionalists. During the six week program, people learn cooking techniques and a whole lot more. They are even taken to a grocery store to learn how to shop for the best low-cost food.

Today at the Care and Share all-staff meeting, one of our volunteer Chefs, Fran Gleason, prepared food that comes from the Cooking Matters menus. We had white bean chili with basil, a brown rice and orange salad, a green salad, peanut butter cookies, and apple crisp. Yum.

If you would like to learn more about our Cooking Matters program, please contact Becky Mares at Becky@careandshare.org.

This is our volunteer chef, Fran Gleason, and our Cooking Matters Manager, Becky Mares.

Lynne as Undercover Boss

2012-01-06T08:58:00.000-08:00

This morning I offered to pick orders in the warehouse. I thought I could put on a disguise and be “Undercover Boss.” It made them laugh, but it didn’t fool anyone.

I often see pallets that are loaded with food, wrapped, and labeled for agencies. This morning I got to put some of these together. Jeff was my mentor. He was very kind to me and did not follow Kevin’s instruction to make sure I spent time in the freezer.

So here is how it works.

Pull document which lists an agency’s request for certain food items.

Get an empty pallet and put it on a pallet jack. That’s right – I can drive the pallet jack.

Find the first item on the list. The lists are printed in the same order that they are stored in the warehouse. Put the right quantity of that item on our pallet and move to the next item.

If a box of miscellaneous food doesn’t have the weight noted, you take them to the scale so that you can record the correct poundage.

If there are no more of the item in the bottom bin, someone (not me) gets the forklift and moves the product from one of the higher selves to the floor.

When all the items are on your pallet, you wrap it all up in plastic wrap and label it.

The pallet is moved to the pick-up area or the delivery area.

Then, you start another order.

This is physically demanding work and the accuracy of picking the orders is important. I was impressed by our warehouse people and grateful that they were so patient with me.