Help Fill an Empty Bowl Campaign

Food Distribution at the Radford Fire House Monday and Friday 11AM

We are continuing the Empty Bowls project with a new addition the Help Fill an Empty Bowl in Radford Campaign. We will be going to businesses in Radford and asking them to please sponor a bowl. More on how that works in another blog. Today I want to show you one of the places the money will help. Every Monday and Friday Beans and Rice staff team with Radford City DSS to distribute food. Folks start to line up around 9:30 AM and we hand out number tickets starting at 10 AM on a first come first served basis, one ticket per family. Between 10 and 11AM food arrives from Wades in Radford and Walmart in Fairlawn. Volnteer drivers with Radford/Fairlawn Daily Bread pick up from Walmart while Radford staff pick up from Wades. Food is unpacked and sorted into dried and canned (we get little of this), bread (Walmart sends a lot of this), bakery goods (Walmart also sends a lot of this), and meats. Wades regularly sends lunch meat, bacon, sausage, cheese, and some juice. Walmart sends meat once or twice a month. We get no fruits or vegetables except during the summer when we go to the Farmer's Market in Hillsville where Donna Peery gives us between 15-30 bushels of produce in season through the auspices of The Society of Saint Andrews. Donna is the mom of our staff member, Kayla Peery. First Baptist provided bushels of potatoes as well.

At 11AM folks come in and "shop." They pick their own foods and are limited only by the number of shoppers and the amount of food we have available. We average about 50 households per each day. We have had as many as 90 households. The firemen and Chief Lee Simpkins are a huge help. First, in Novemebr they let us come into one of the bays out of the weather (we were in tents before). They help set up tables. They provide coolers. They've helped with getting the food off the trucks and they 've stored food in their freezers. We really could not do this without them.

Although this seems to be a low cost activity, there are a lot of hidden costs. For example, we needed a vehicle to go to Hillsville to get the produce. Our van is used for other program needs and we could only borrow a vehicle for so long. So, we bought a truck, a 1981 Dodge with rebuilt engine and transmission. It needs insurance, some work like a tuneup , and of course there's the cost of gas. Also, this project takes about 72 staff hours a week. Things go most smoothly when we have 7-8 staff working. And, this is just one of our food projects. More on those later.