Found Food--More on Where Your Money Goes

Food pantry at Willow Woods

Thank you, thank you Kenny Ford. Kenny got us boxes and boxes of fresh produce that were from a wreck on I81. Tuesday I get a call from Kenny on his cell. Can we handle a bunch of produce. Yes. Where to put it? A few calls later, Kenny who is both a board member and a Radford City Police Officer says: "We'll take it to the firehouse." My reaction was: "Will Lee (our beloved fire chief and all around good guy) have room and does he really want to fool with this?" Kenny's confident response: "He'll take it." My reaction: "OK, officer."

It turns out that when a shipment of food has wrecked, the shipment is compromised and can not be sold by a commercial vendor. The Department of Agriculture has to review it and approve the removal of the food. They must also approve the recipient of the food. So, Kenny got it for us. His role in this is unclear to me but I'm going to find out.

Wednesday the William and Mary students went with Kathy our Community Outreach Worker to SW Virginia Second Harvest. Most months Kathy goes to Second Harvest to get food for the Willow Woods food pantry where she provides for between 30-40 families on a monthly basis. At the pantry we give out a box of fresh, frozen, canned and dried foods. Kathy has two freezers and space in the two After School Program refrigerators to store food.

The students were blown away by the fact that we had to pay for the food when it was food that had been donated. We discussed this on Thursday AM. We pay a yearly fee and also the cost per pound for the food for the pantry. Second Harvest functions a lot like a Sam's Club for nonprofits. But just like a Sam's clubs there is a lot of controls when you make any one point the distribution for food to most food pantries. It seems that some food pantry sites get greater preference and "first dibs" on food. This has been the source of some annoyance for many nonprofits.

Back to the produce. While some students went to Second Harvest others helped bag up the produce which included tomatoes, green beans, peppers, and egg plant. Thursday they helped Kathy distribute the bags of produce to folks at Willow Woods who can't get to food distribution Some was shared with Radford Church of God in Christ who's van we had used to get to Second Harvest. Friday they helped with food distribution.

All told the food Kenny found went to 73 families. Fresh produce is something we had not received since late fall so this was the greatest.