FIELD TRIP TO THE CALGARY FOOD BANK ST PETER S CWL June 8/11 Meeting up outside the front door. During hamper pickup times (Monday to Friday from 1 3:30 pm, and Monday to Thursday from 6:30 to 7:30) the parking lot can be a very busy place, especially in the last half of each month. In December the vehicle lineup can extend down the street several hundred yards, and the hours are expanded. More than 82% of clients using the Food Bank will do so 3 times or less.
Kathryn Sim, the Food Bank s Communication and Marketing Coordinator, is our smiling tour guide. The soup cans in the display case behind her honor various donors to the program. Our tour begins in the staff room, where Kathryn describes a recent research project. Data collected from 2000 to 2009, will provide very valuable information for the organization s ongoing mission to address the issue of food insecurity.
Outside the intake room, where the Food Bank receives 200-300 calls per day. Clients can self refer up to 3 times, with an additional 4 hampers per year if they are referred by a community services agency. The Food Bank lobby; clients present their ID to the receiving window on the left before proceeding to the pickup area.
Clients then proceed to the right to pickup their hampers. It is preferable for clients to call in advance, but for clients who just arrive, the bench along the far wall has phones available for clients to call intake fromdirectly on site. On the other side of the wall, volunteers consult with the clients before augmenting the prepared hamper with fresh produce, meat, dairy items and treats. No one gets brussel sprouts unless they want them!
The baby room, for which St. Peter s CWL held its April Showers diaper collection in the spring. The Food Bank works with dozens of social agencies. The sign refers to a pet care program, and earlier in the day was a display regarding dental hygiene.
Onto the warehouse.holy hopping food crates, Batman, this building is over 60,000 square feet! And it s so spotless and tidy that the Food Bank s numerous awards includes an Honorable Mention for the Alberta s Best Workplaces Health & Safety Award.
The receiving bay doors; direct donation from the food industry accounts for at least 70% of food donations. Matthew is one of the accomplished forklift drivers that could give Mario Andretti a run for his money.
The south end of the receiving area, with a cardboard compactor on the far left. The Calgary Food Bank believes in recycling. For instance, every year over 272,000 pounds of inedible food donations, cardboard and paper are destined for The City of Calgary s compost programs and local goat and pig farms. Like on any city street, the yellow line indicates a high traffic area. Make sure you look both ways
Shelves are labeled with magnetic signs so they can be easily rearranged as inventory changes. A group shot. Everyone at the Food Bank is proud of their facility and visitors from the community are welcome.
Inside the cooler that s a lot of grade A s! We admire the artwork provided by local school kids to decorate the warehouse walls.
A brief stop at the forbidden closet items which are outdated, spoiled, or just plain inappropriate
Rice is one of the few items that is repackaged into smaller portions, (also pasta & diapers!) but most other things (such as flour) are too messy. On the other hand, removing cereal from its boxes conserves space.
Food donations move down a conveyor belt to be sorted at several stations. Later, the process happens in reverse when hampers are prepared with a specific number of items, according to the size of the household. A single hamper may contain several crates. The average cost for a family of four is $120.
Hampers are also prepared for distribution to the homeless by agencies such as The Calgary Drop-In Centre, the Aboriginal Friendship Centre, and Feed the Hungry, to name but a few. A can opener is included, along with foods that require no particular preparation. Once packed, the hamper/crates are wrapped in plastic to await pickup by clients the next day.
On any given day, there will be between 80 & 100 volunteers working at the Food Bank, many of them families who have been coming for years. At the end of every Shopping shift (where hampers are assembled for the following day), Dave, the Senior Evening Supervisor, will thank the volunteers, by saying: Tonight you built (# of) hampers using (X) pounds of food. In doing so you have touched the lives of (# of) Calgarians. Thank you.
The Calgary Food Bank was named as one of the Top 100 Places to Work in Canada, and this comes as no surprise after seeing the smiles on everyon s faces. A few more facts you may not know: The Food Bank has a birthday room where volunteers can assemble a party in a box, including cake mix, icing, small gifts, and even decorations The Food Bank prepares celiac hampers, and provides moo juice (milk) for clients from 0 17 years of age. For every dollar donated, the Food Bank distributes $4 worth of food, and does this without government or United Way funding. The Food Bank distributes an average of 250 hampers per day. Over 140,000 Calgarians receive emergency food from the Calgary Food Bank last year, and of those, 41% were children. The Calgary Food Bank serves as a central warehouse for donations to food banks in other central and southern Alberta towns, and will also distribute food to areas hit by disaster, such as Slave Lake following the forest fires there.