A New Approach to the Old Food Bank Model
Published August 06, 2009 @ 06:00AM PT
Visiting the local food bank has always been viewed as somewhat of an impersonal experience chalk full of long lines, barren walls and sunken faces. You show up, wait your turn and then, if you're lucky, receive a few grocery bags full of post-expiration goods.
It is this routine that sometimes causes people to avoid taking advantage of a food bank's services, even if they desperately need them.
Sasha Abramky, in his book Breadline USA (which I've referenced before), visits a food pantry in Sacramento, California and offers this reflection:
I stopped at the table with whittled-down pencils and short charity request forms to fill in. Once inside, I made a U-turn, going back down the interior side of the brick wall that I had just advanced along from the outside. To my left was a painted wall with a sheet of metal, etched with years of graffiti; to my right, dull white-and-blue painted bricks...This wasn't a supermarket without cash registers, a consumer place of choice, of lifestyles realized. It was, I felt, rather a place for the spreading of tuberculosis or the flu, as well as every other germ, real and imagined; it was truly a last-stop hotel, a room where dignity came to die.
It was probably the desire to move away from such an institutional setting that pushed the University District Food Bank (UDFB) in Seattle to develop a new way for clients to get their hands on much-needed food.
In 2007, they launched a new super-market style food bank that gave clients the ability to "shop" for food by strolling through aisles of canned goods, frozen items and even fresh produce. For this work, UDFB won a 2008 Excellence in Service award from the non-profit group Food Lifeline. Here's a little description of their project from the award announcement (pdf):
All our non-perishable foods are organized on shelves by the different nutritional categories of the USDA Food Pyramid and these shelves are labeled/color-coded to correspond with the shopping budgets that we provide our customers at check-in. Each household that comes to our food bank receives a shopping "budget" that is based on their family size and their family's nutritional needs for three days. With budget in hand, our customers grab a shopping cart and go shopping to pick out the specific items that they want or need.
(I really encourage people to read through the link immediately above. It gives specific advice and directions on how to replicate this project anywhere in the country.)
I would just really like to applaud UDFB for their efforts to make visiting the food bank a more pleasurable, and even an empowering, experience. Simply giving food bank clients a choice in what food they receive makes these families feel like they matter, like someone cares about them. And in the end, that's really what everyone in poverty advocacy work strives for.
Another Seattle-area non-profit group, Hopelink, opened a new grocery store style food bank modeled on UDFB's this week.
I say, keep 'em coming.
(Photo credit: Jeff Keen on Flickr)
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Comments (21)
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Author
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Greg Plotkin is currently a grant-writer living in Washington, DC. As a two-year AmeriCorps member teaching in DC Public Schools, he saw families struggling with poverty on a daily basis and has become particularly interested in hunger, nutrition and food access issues. He has also viewed poverty through the lens of his work with Habitat for Humanity and Charlie's Place--a DC soup kitchen and homeless support center.
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It may be more empowering, and more pleasurable. (Though how pleasurable is grocery shopping really, even when it's an act of hardship alleviation.)
But what I like about this is the normalization of it - that is, it's pretty close to grocery shopping at a "regular" food store, which has the very important effect, I think, of reducing ever so slightly one more institutional barrier b/w the poor and non-poor in the US.
Posted by Leigh Graham on 08/06/2009 @ 07:06AM PT
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Here in Moorhead, MN we have a Dorothy Day Food Pantry that also offers the clients the opportunity to shop from different sections of shelved items. This is one way to help ensure that people are getting items they will like and use.
We have Sri Lankan and Bosnian friends who used to get stuff they didn't like or didn't know what to do with (such as lots of highly processed foods). Now they can choose things they are familar with (such as rice and beans in bulk and veggies they like). Since they can pick from each category, they are ensured to be choosing a healthy and balanced assortment of foods.
People I have talked to really seem to like the new way.
I know that before, it was like a roll of the dice - you never knew what you were going to get. Often people would check their bags or boxes after getting them and they would try to trade stuff they didn't like with others who maybe had something they wanted and were willing to trade for. That didn't always work though, beacuase many people would not always be willing to give away any of their stuff.
People just seem to feel much more satisfied and respected because of the chance to choose.
Posted by Karl Keene on 08/06/2009 @ 08:38AM PT
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I really, really like this and for the same reasons as Leigh & Karl. It keeps self respect in tact and allows for choice of product enhancing not only physical well being but mental as well.
I've participated in many food drives, especially recently with such a high demand in local pantries, I'm going to talk to the local pantry and find out if this model is possible and why it hasn't been implemented.
Posted by Michele Rodriguez on 08/06/2009 @ 11:49AM PT
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And I obviously agree with all of you!
I guess I should have made it an even more important point in my post.
Both "normalizing" the trip to the food pantry and giving clients a choice of what they receive is important...but really I feel like this model also helps people make healthier food choices while they're shopping.
If only shelves at the "real" grocery store were categorized by the USDA Food Pyramid!
Posted by Greg Plotkin on 08/06/2009 @ 11:56AM PT
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That is true and a nice addition to the grocery shelves! I missed the focus because I was so excited about the new grocery shopping model.
Posted by Michele Rodriguez on 08/06/2009 @ 02:18PM PT
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Yeah, but I don't think the food pyramid is all that accurate in terms of healthy eating, is it?
Posted by Leigh Graham on 08/06/2009 @ 06:41PM PT
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Btw, I don't agree that it "helps" people make better food choices. It lets them make their own food choices - healthy or otherwise. If we wanted pp to eat healthy wouldn't we just give them the food we think is healthy?
It's just that in the old model there was both no choice and, it sounds like, limited consideration of healthy food (however we're defining that) given the need to also fill hungry bellies w/ whatever calories it took.
Posted by Leigh Graham on 08/06/2009 @ 06:43PM PT
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It might not make people choose better food choices but it is possible it would help while allowing them to make their own food choices at the same time. I think it's this flexibility that retains choice that is so right about this model.
Posted by Michele Rodriguez on 08/07/2009 @ 06:55AM PT
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AND it educates people, especially if they are given nutritional information upon entering the store. I personally would be greatly helped by having the store arranged by USDA categories. Even though I am fairly nutritionally educated, it would help me to notice if I am spending too much time in one section, and not eating a balanced diet.
At times of my life when I've been broke and feeding a family, high carb and empty nutrition foods were unfortunately the cheapest.
Posted by Romy Carver on 08/07/2009 @ 10:28AM PT
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It's nice, but what I'd REALLY like to see as a Seattle resident is for someone to fix the never talked about and even uglier side of Seattle food help. See, Seattle food banks pick who they'll serve by zip codes (only 1 or 2 serve anyone) and many of them are even stricter with things like people from this group come on this day and that group comes on that day and your group may or may not be serviced by any food bank that DOES serve your zip code OR the food banks that serve your zip code may or may not actually have food by the time that they get to your group. There is ONE food bank that serves disabled people in my zip code. ONE. This being the one that I've mentioned before where I've gotten food so disgustingly past date that the workers didn't know what it had been.
This is fine and dandy but quit putting lipsticks on the pigs while the pigs are still wallowing in mud. It's more dehumanizing to not be able to get help AT ALL or to get "food help" that should have been trash long ago than it is to have to wait in long lines in ugly buildings where they picked your food for you (after all, this way, you ARE getting food). I've helped with food ministries/pantries and I've gotten help and I'd MUCH rather see the money go to expanding the help before it goes to pretty buildings. When we're helping everyone, then we can talk about making things look like grocery stores.
Posted by Danetta Amschler on 08/06/2009 @ 12:39PM PT
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I don't think they should be able to serve foods that are past the date at all. I think you can set it up like a food store without spending a fortune but I think pretty buildings aren't as important as what's inside for sure.
Posted by Michele Rodriguez on 08/06/2009 @ 02:17PM PT
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I don't think they should either, but fact of the matter is that many food banks DO and not just by "day old" past date but "way out of date" like the stuff I mentioned above that was so far gone that nobody knew what it had been when it for sure WAS food. It's often something that happens because the "food" supply at the food bank is so short that they "have" to give it out to have "enough" and this results in what can be anything from giving out bread that's "moldy in spots but they can pick off the moldy bits" to "some people will get this unrecognizable goo". Since the prevailing attitude in many places is - quite literally - "beggars can't be choosers" the response, should anyone even dare say anything, is a variant of "take it or leave it". I'm waiting for the day that a food bank hands out something like one of these sorts of "foods" and gets sued for someone becoming violently ill because of the rotten food. I suppose a "beggar" shouldn't be a "chooser" if we're talking about people complaining because they wanted white bread instead of wheat or steak instead of chicken; but SURELY even the poorest among us who is the most dependent upon the help of food banks and such has the right for the food they receive to actually qualify as things like nutritious and sanitary - qualifications not always met by food bank food. To fail to do so - and particularly to fail to do and then turn around and tell anyone who dares to complain to quit complaining - strikes me as both cruel and inhumane.
Posted by Danetta Amschler on 08/06/2009 @ 04:33PM PT
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You brought up an important point. Here in my county there are some geographical limits too. And I've heard the same thing about free clothing sites. I remember hearing Dr. Donna Beegle speak about her poverty experiences. She lived in a very poor neighborhood and needed school clothes for her kids. She knew which churches had clothing that her kids wouldn't be ridiculed for wearing. Unfortunately, they were in other neighborhoods and those churches required people to show proof of address in order to give out clothing. Not only did this impact Donna, but the homeless. She ended up buying a $2 (at that time) receipt book and wrote out a fake rent receipt with an address in that neighborhood so her children could have decent clothing for school. I guess those churches wanted to pretty up their own neighborhoods, but didn't want to make a widespread difference.
In the 80's, when I lived north of Seattle and went to food banks, they gave us TVP (texturized vegetable protein), which looked exactly like dried dog food. I had never heard of it, and was not offered recipes or ways to use it. Once I asked, they advised me to add it to meatloafs and such to make meat go further. Great idea, but I am sure a lot of people were afraid to ask, and threw it out.
Posted by Romy Carver on 08/07/2009 @ 10:36AM PT
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Yeah, I don't get the whole "we don't help outside this zipcode or these zipcodes" bit either and particularly not when they start adding on other requirements like so many of the foodbanks do - like "must be a member of this organization" or "must have children under ___" or "must have adults over ___". Why not just admit that what you're really trying to do is PRETEND you're helping while not really doing anything or not doing much at all. By the point you've restricted your help THIS much, it's really window dressing. Sorta like "oooo lookie over here! We helped FOUR people! (but nevermind the untold thousands still literally starving because they didn't meet our persnickety requirements for our "help")..." I really hope these places aren't breaking any arms patting themselves on the back.
I mean, I get that you (as in any particular individual or group) can't help EVERYONE, but seriously, OTOH, what's the point of making rules that don't help much of anyone or that leave out entire groups of people?
Posted by Danetta Amschler on 08/07/2009 @ 11:13AM PT
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That is sad Danetta. I am a firm believer that "beggars can't be choosers" is a phrase used by those who feel entitled to what they have but have to believe themselves/their family/and their community alone are deserving of their bountiful life. This allows them to close off and deny help or reach out to families and individuals not in their immediate lives that are facing difficult times.
I'm surprised that there aren't laws preventing the sale of old goods though. I know that in NJ supermarkets are not allowed to sell goods past the date stamped on them. I will have to find out if these laws apply to NJ food banks. It's insanity that we don't think we need to protect the health of those families and individuals whose circumstances make them more vulnerable.
Posted by Michele Rodriguez on 08/07/2009 @ 07:04AM PT
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I'm pretty sure you're right about the purpose of "beggars can't be choosers".
As to laws against sale of old products, there really needs to be a law governing what can be given out in food banks too. Stuff like that "unrecognizable goo" isn't food and hasn't been for a long time. Why are they giving it out as food and how are they able to get away with it? It's at best unethical and should be illegal. I could see slightly more lax than the rules for sale, but not to the point of moldy bread and unrecognizable goo. Not unless there's a way that the food bank is going to start taking responsibility for a lot of medical bills.
Posted by Danetta Amschler on 08/07/2009 @ 11:21AM PT
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Many cities have a version of this. The best I've seen is the West Side Campaign Against Hunger in NYC: http://wscah.org/
There definitely need to be more of them.
Posted by JC Dwyer on 08/07/2009 @ 08:45AM PT
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This is a more humane way for the food bank to operate. When I had to use the services of a food bank, the food was so missed matched, such as 3 cans of frosting, lard, canned milk. Nothing that you could make one meal with let alone more. This way people can have a choice and eat healthy. Excellent idea.
Posted by Mary Ann Thompson on 08/07/2009 @ 09:48AM PT
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This Thursday we go to Our local food bank for the dented and out of dated cans. I am grateful for food banks, but even their workers wants to end poverty. I get to try food I ordinarily would not purchase.
I also get stuff I said we do not want. I do not cook with flour nor use sugar.
We are just a bit OVER the food stamps ultra low requirement. Some of those dented cans are so bad I throw then away, rather then chancing illness or death.
Posted by jan Lightfootlane on 08/09/2009 @ 11:01AM PT
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This is a great idea and I hope that it inspires more food banks to follow. I also think it would be amazing for food banks to regularily carry hygiene items like diapers, pull ups, toilet paper, and feminine products. These items are not covered under programs like food stamps or WIC and these items can take up to 20% of a family's monthly income - just on diapers, for example. It is pretty common these days to hear that families are forced to choose between food or diapers - and IMO, this is not acceptable. There us an opportunity to utilize the existing food bank infrastructure to help out struggling families.
Posted by lisa t. on 08/09/2009 @ 01:46PM PT
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Having had to utilize a food bank to feed my family, I wholeheartedly applaud this project!!
It is hard enough to have to use a food bank, very demoralizing!! But to add insult to injury, I would bring home items that my kids hated making me feel a bigger failure as a parent seeing their dissapointed faces at the food I brought home.
Needless to say, some of the items were wasted as my young children simply would not eat the items that they did not like.
It would have been much less devastating to my self-worth to be able to "shop" for the food that my family so desperately needed.
Great idea!!
Posted by susan griffin on 08/10/2009 @ 04:06AM PT
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