Food Bank Fail, or Canned Food Comedy

We found ourselves at the Capital Area Food Bank again this morning.  We were the pros this time, offering sorting advice to the first-timer volunteers from some federal office.  Or so I thought.  I put cereal in the Dry Goods bin (Whoops!  There's a Cereal bin over there), and I put cooking oil in the Glass and Plastic bin (Whoops!  There's a Cooking Oil bin over there).  Worst of all was water.  I put Perrier in the Water bin and was told NO.  Perrier is a Small Serving Drink.  Later on I observed folks removing piles of cans from the Small Serving Drink bin.  Why?  It was seltzer.  All seltzer, flavored or not, is considered Water.  Whoops!  I found my Perrier, now buried in Small Serving Drinks, and unilaterally reclassified it as Water.  Must not have been too terrible because Volunteer Coordinator David, who looked like he could bench 400 pounds, told us at the end that we did a great job.

Girls getting ready to pre-sort

What's in the box?  Lots of cans

The food bank warehouse looks like Costco

Later we visited Bread for the World, a lobbying and advocacy group whose goal is to promote food availability and affordability policies both domestically and internationally.  The biggest takeaway was that we shouldn't be shy about calling and writing our representatives on issues that concern us.  Calling is good, writing is better.  Getting elected, I suppose, would be even better. 

 

The view from the offices of Bread for the World

Tomorrow we head home.  It has been a terrific week.  The youth have been wonderful, and it has been a pleasure spending this time with them.  One of the questions on the Passport camp evaluations is Why did you choose to chaperone?  Part of my answer is it's one of the best weeks I spend all year. 

 

Thanks for reading!