Community Chair Notes |
Every first Friday of the month Mensa member Jack Bell and his wife Mary, can be found happily popping boxes for the Westside Food Bank in Phoenix along with a small crew of helpers, preparing packages for distribution all over the state of Arizona.
Jack kindly invited me to visit recently to see how it all works. For those of you unfamiliar with this organization, it centralizes food collection for a number of programs, and distributes all over the state of Arizona. It serves seniors, women who are pregnant, or who have children under 5, with qualifying low incomes; people receiving various forms of aid, the unemployed and others qualified. It offers a co-op food buying program where $15. cash will buy $25 to $30 worth of groceries, as well as giving the food outright. Bank officials estimate that they distribute between six and nine million pounds of recovered fruits and vegetables each year, which would otherwise go unharvested. And they operate almost completely with volunteers.
The physical set up is similar to a super market, with the customers receiving an authorizing chit for the items they are allowed first, then filling their own baskets before presenting the chit to the cashier. The labor is supplied by the volunteers and jail inmates (very interesting to see the Maricopa County Black and White stripes busy lifting boxes and punching registers!), plus a few paid employees. Out of area programs deliver pre-packed boxes, and the purchase program is also pre-packaged. (Which is what Jack and his wife do on their half-day per month stint.)
Support comes from private donations of individuals, corporations, congregations and service clubs as well as United Way and Community Funds, and some programs are reimbursed by the Arizona Dept of Health Services and Economic Security. Much food is received from the USDA, although it is not "surplus" food, but instead is purchased by the government to supply the programs. More help is always welcome, if you have a little time (even half a day a month), and support for food drives is important too. If you are interested, I have more information, and application forms for volunteering. If you have any other special areas of interest you’d like me to look at for future reference, please let me know. Jacpow@aol.com or (602)298-4428.