Comment on All this produce is going to spoil at the food bank where I volunteer
nokturne213@sopuli.xyz 5 days agoWe have tried to work with restaurants in the past, giving them extra produce for free and they in turn have to prepare so many meals for unhoused and our volunteers and they refused.
We are looking at being able to use the community kitchen to process it ourselves. The issue then comes down to enough volunteer hours to do this.
bleistift2@sopuli.xyz 5 days ago
Nitpick: If you’re demanding that they do something in return, it’s not free.
In this case your two options are: A) Someone gets the food and puts it to use; B) it spoils. In this scenario I believe giving it away, no strings attached, might be the better option.
nokturne213@sopuli.xyz 5 days ago
Because of bureaucracy we have to request this. If it is found out we are giving away the food to unapproved recipients we can lose all of our funding. If we give to unapproved recipients and they in turn give us prepared food to give out, that is okay.
Word got out that we were loading up my pickup with food and taking it to the homeless camps. I did get a number of them to start coming to the bank to get food. But it was easier when I could take stuff to them.
bleistift2@sopuli.xyz 5 days ago
I hadn’t considered bureaucratic obstacles… that sucks.
nokturne213@sopuli.xyz 5 days ago
The other obstacle is volunteer hours, as I mentioned in another reply, there is only so much we can do. Many of the volunteers are only there to get some extra food, others for community service (as required by a judge in restitution for a crime), others as required by their church. Most are ONLY there for the volunteer hours and do not care about anything other than getting their hours. They will not go beyond their basic duties.
There are weeks we barely have enough people to keep the doors open to give out food. I am no longer in a position to volunteer whenever they need me.