I mentioned in our last article that last year Love Chapel distributed over 2.2 million pounds of food. Think about this large number a little bit differently. We are open six days a week, with some time off around holidays, so the pantry is open around 300 days a year. That means in an average day, Love Chapel distributes over 7,300 pounds of food each day. How does that happen? Where does the food come from? How do we keep track?
Let’s start with the where. Out of the 2.2 million pounds of food, approximately 1.6 million pounds were donated, and the rest was purchased by Love Chapel to supplement donations.
The USDA and the Grocer’s Association worked together to form an organization called Feeding America. Food has a sell by date (not an expiration date) and grocers who are part of Feeding America agree to donate anything close to the sell by date to food Banks such as Gleaners Food Bank in our area. The USDA then has put out guidelines for how long products are good past the sell by date.
Gleaner’s then gives the food to local Food Pantries – Like Love Chapel. All of this giving occurs on paper, and in reality, we at Love Chapel go directly to the grocers and pick up the donated food – all the transferring occurs on paper. Members of Feeding America include Walmart, Sam’s Club, Kroger, Jay-C and many others.
Love Chapel has a refrigerated truck and makes pickups on Monday, Wednesday and Friday – a lot of which comes from Sam’s Club and Walmart. In addition, we have 12 drivers who pick up at regular stops from other stores and restaurants. These donations are supplemented by commodities from Gleaners, food drives, churches who provide food for the pantry and other Senior Projects and special events.
Most of the food we purchase comes from Gleaners where we can stretch our dollar considerably. We also look for sales at various local outlets.
The bigger piece is the dedication of our volunteers. Every pound of food brought into Love Chapel is weighed, checked for dates and put into its assigned spots to be distributed. Just to keep the warehouse running, we have a total of 25 drivers and pickup persons, and on any given day will have 6 to 8 individuals who are weighing. Checking and sorting.
As the amount of food goes up, so does the need for volunteers. If you would consider spending a day a week or month to help out, please give us a call at 812.372.9421 of visit our website to sign up – Volunteers – Love Chapel
