Just some facts

When children do not receive proper nutrition it effects their physical, behavioral, mental health, their development, and any academic achievements they are meant to have it also weakens their immune system and puts them at risk for diseases and illnesses that could possibly kill them. Children that live in food-insecure households show more signs of difficulty concentrating in school than children who live in food-secure households. When they have difficulty concentrating it leads to repeating a grade, consistently absent, always late, horrible test scores, and they have a problem with being social.

Plant-A-Row for the Hungry program asks anyone when they are planning their garden to just plant one extra row to help out. The Community Gardens are planted in low-income neighborhoods and allows the community to be involved. This program teaches the people how to plan, plant, care for, and harvest a garden. Once people learn how to do this they can start their own and contribute the produce to help out while still having enough to feed their families and themselves.

According to the foodbankonline.org fact sheet there is over 15 million pounds of food distributed in the fiscal year, more than 400,000 individuals were served through the Foodbank, 48% are single parent households, 51% are women, 34% of households that were helped had only one employed adult, 49% of the people served at soup kitchens were employed, 35% are unemployed and lost their job within the last 2 years, 55% were seniors, 27% of the homeless that is served are employed but live in shelters. Other facts are $.32 is what it costs to assemble a full course meal (1= about 3 meals), a $1 donation can distribute up to $6 worth of groceries, $2.14 is what it costs to distribute a meal at the Kids Café (this amount is higher because there is more focus on nutritional content), there has been more than 221 million pounds of food distributed since the Foodbank began in 1981, $.96 of every dollar goes to different programs and services that feed the hungry, 81% of households that are served reported that the food they brought does not last and do not have money for more, 57.3% ate less because they wanted their food to last as long as possible, 46% of the people served reported having to choose between paying their bills or buying food to eat, and of all the partner agencies who participated in Hunger in America approximately 60% reported an increase in services to the hungry.

Sorting Food

When I went back to the food bank I was again unsure of what I was going to do. This time when I went there was an ODU sports team I believe men's tennis but they was fun to volunteer with and their coach was funny. The sorting room is not very big so you can image the team which had 9 men, one other girl, and me we was constantly bumping into each other with our carts.

As we entered the sorting room Angel explained how food was still good for at least a year after its sell buy date there are somethings the food bank will not keep after the date its baby food, pet food, and things like aspirin and Tylenol.

He then went on to explain that even though  canned food may look damaged it might not be. Cans can have dents in it everywhere but as long as there is not a crease that has a sharp point either on top of the can, bottom of the can, or sides of the can than it is still good. He explained that when the can has a crease/dent that bad usually it means that air has gotten into it and been contaminated and may poison someone. he showed us some examples of cans that you would think are bad but they actually wasn't and then showed us the bad cans which some did not look that bad.

He then went on to boxes of food. He was saying how the box could be completely destroyed or even open it could still be good. This is how you check first you must be able to see the best buy date if you can not find it or you can find it but cant understand what it says then the box is to be thrown away there is no if ands or buts about it second flip it upside down and if nothing comes out than the box is good if there is even a small teeny tiny amount than that means there is a hole somewhere and it must be thrown out. Again he showed us examples of both.

In the middle of the floor is boxes stacked on top of each other and this is what needs to be sorted this food comes from donations made by the general public and stores but have not been sorted through and this was our job. All around there are metal baskets that are labeled with what is suppose to go inside of them and they was in alphabetical order to make it easier. Once these metal baskets are full than someone wheels them into another room into a spot that is designated for this type of food. You got the food from the boxes to the metal baskets with a shopping cart that was donated for this purpose.

Again Angel made sure everyone was comfortable and gave them water when they needed it. He played music which put you in the mood to move and if anyone was unsure of something he was available for questions and made sure he answered them as correctly as he could.

After awhile and again time went by quick Angel gave us a tour of the building. He explained how they obtain grants what they are used for and showed us the crates and crates of food that was donated which did not need to be separated because that was all that was in them.

He took us to the freezer which was freezing of course and showed us the food in their and explained the temps that it needed to be. They do get inspected frequently because of their cause. we then went to the dairy room and that is where the milk and things that need to be refrigerated are it kinda looked like a mini grocery store. then we went to the room where the meats are cleaned, cut, and packaged wow that room was clean of course no one was in there when we got there. He explained how the room was used and cleaned major sanitation in there and you could tell.

Throughout this whole tour he was explaining what programs they had how it worked and when. He showed us where the food for kids is cooked and explained how they needed more food because there is not enough.

That's when I realized I need to do more so I started my own garden very little for the beginning and everything that is grown will be donated to the food bank I will not use anything from it. I want to start donating money because $1=3 meals or close to 6 bags of grocery's I do not have alot of money so I will start off small but every week I will give at least $1.

I am going to hold a food drive once I am done with school and op-sail because those are very time consuming and want all my time to be focused on the food drive so i would say late june early july I will begin it. I still plan to volunteer and help out as much as possible.

Camp allen

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First Day

On my first day at the food bank I was a little nervous not knowing what to expect. Angel who guides the volunteers was extremely nice. At first I thought that I was going to separate food like it said on the website that gives the descriptions of what each volunteer does but I actually went outside and was put in front of a BIG box of broccoli not knowing what to do with it I just stared at it. There was 3 other volunteers there besides me one of them was a leader. as I looked at it Angel started to explain not just how to separate them but what they will be used for.

On Fridays the food bank gives grocery bags full of food to the people that need it. The broccoli was frozen so at first it was harder to separate. Also I am allergic to latex and this was the gloves they had (I didn't think anyone actually still used them) I told Angel and he search the whole building until he found the vinyl gloves for me I actually thought he was gonna have me do something else that didn't require using gloves.

The leader started to help us but then we was moving so fast he just kept putting the broccoli on the table every time he had broken down one box one of us had another for him it was actually quite funny its like we was in a secrete race. When we got done with the first batch I thought that was it and it had only taken 40 mins but than funny man (every time I went he always had something funny to say) drove his forklift over with another batch because we knew what we was doing and had a secrete race going on this one only took 20 mins for the same amount.

By the end no one had realized that time was up and there was still a lot more broccoli that needed to be separated and bagged but Angel said he would have the people that came in later that night finish it. The whole time we was separating and bagging Angel and the leader kept asking us if we wanted something to drink and made sure we was comfortable and didn't need anything which I thought was extremely nice.

Helping at camp allen school

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Helping

Camp Allen helping pass out food

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PAPER PLATE

I just foung out that one way the Foodbank advocates is by having people tell there story on a PAPER PLATE. They pretty much say how the foodbank helps them, how they ended up needing the help, what does the foodbank mean to the community, or why they support the foodbank. so the foodbank is trying to get 10,000 paper plates together and take it to the state house them people up there need to no what is really going on and how bad people are suffereing. maybe they should actually feel for themselves how the pains of hunger feel and makes your body ache then maybe they will give more money to help feed the people who need it.