This morning I spent a good chunk
of time driving around on a bumpy gravel road in outer Portland trying to find
the Errol Heights Community Garden. When I finally stumbled upon it, I filled
the trunk of my car with forty-seven pounds of fading collard greens, tomatoes
from every stage of life and several monster zucchinis. I can’t help but laugh
about the fact that although I no longer serve with FoodCorps, my new job
description remains surprisingly similar.
Last week, I started my new job as
a Food Pantry Assistant Coordinator for Metropolitan Family Service and the Portland
SUN program (Schools Uniting Neighborhoods). I am now responsible for
coordinating three food pantries based at SUN schools and the weekly
distribution of food to families in need. Because I am still trying to figure
out how to best protect the privacy of our clients in this blog, for now I am
going t refrain from naming what schools I work at. I will say that they are
two elementary schools and one high school all located on the east side of the
river.
My day starts at MFS, where I pick
up the van and head to the Oregon Food Bank with one other MFS employee where
an order has been placed for the school that has a distribution that afternoon.
At very low cost, the SUN program buys canned and non-perishable foods, frozen
meats, and eggs from the Food Bank for each of its sites. Then we “shop the
dock,” which entails looking through the perishable foods that have been
donated and selecting what we believe our clientele needs or would enjoy. Last
week it included green tomatoes, sweet potatoes, pre-packaged salads, carrots
and blue berries. Scrounging in the refrigerator also produced a variety of
yogurts. As we select food, we check the expiration date. For dairy, it’s considered
safe if we distribute it within five days of the expiration date; for canned
food it’s five years. One the van is loaded, we head to the school site. This trip
may also include a stop at a community garden or private residence to pick up a
donation of produce (which right now are almost entirely made up of enormous
zucchini and green tomatoes.)
Each one of my schools distributes
on a different day, so the afternoon is spent unloading the van and organizing
the food for distribution. Because of space and funding limitations, all of my
schools are unable to store food in the same space that it will be distributed,
so volunteers assist in sorting and carrying food out to the tables where
families will get to browse the selection.
Two of my food pantries are open to
the community and one is technically open only to the families of students,
although no one is ever turned away. Families converge as much as an hour
before the pantry opens, to get in line or to collect their shopping number to
determine the order of go. Volunteers, called “shopping assistants,” guide our
clients down the tables and help carry bags, select produce and keep things
moving. Volunteers may be community members who, by volunteering, get to shop
first, students, or members of a church group.
Each one of my schools serves
thirty to forty families, and it is my job to make sure that everyone leaves
with an equivalent amount of food. This involves keeping careful track of how
much food we have, how many families have turned up, what they’re taking, and
being ready to make substitutions. True to my FoodCorps roots; I spend a great
deal of time trying to get families to try foods they may not be familiar with,
such as kohlrabi or lentils. The extra challenge is that I often have to do all
of this in Spanish. Culture plays a role in the foods we seek out- I know that
one of my sites serves mainly Hispanic families, who are more likely to want
lots of peppers and beans. Another site has a large Asian population, who knows
what to do with bok choy and doesn’t want peanut butter.
Each one of my sites is lucky
enough to have an AmeriCorps volunteer, who does much of the necessary
paperwork and is my main recruiter and organizer of volunteers. I have been
enjoying getting to know them, and was thrilled to crash the MFS AmeriCorps
orientation last week and meet the approximately 15 service members scattered
at schools around the city.
Because this is a part-time job (incredibly
enough), I have also secured a job teaching weekly cooking and gardening
classes to middle school students at another SUN school. I have yet to get
started- I won’t have a curriculum or students for some time, but I am
incredibly excited to continue working with kids.
I am not sure how this blog is
going to evolve to follow my new path working on urban food access, but I do
promise to continue sharing my thoughts and experiences as I learn.
