Food Pantry Christmas

Sorry so many posts have been so personal. Things will hopefully get better after Christmas or New Year's.

Saw this port-o-potty on the way to the Food Pantry this morning, and thought the name of the company was brilliant. (It might require clicking on the picture to be readable. If you do, hit your back arrow to return.)


Today was the last food pantry until January 7. People are allowed to come twice in December, once either the first or the second week and then today. Luckily we had a lot of once-a-year volunteers to help out, including a group from Allstate Insurance. They were nice folks.

Before I got started, I dropped by the toy room, where parents can pick up a free toy for each of their children. I took a few pictures, then went to find out what my work station would be today.



Things are organized differently on special days, like today. Instead of having just one place where groceries are picked up, different work stations are set up around the room. If you live by yourself, you go Table 1. Two people in the family, and you go to Table 2. Three to four people, Table 3. I was assigned to Table 4, which is supposed to be for families of five to eight people, but since there is no Table 5, it's also for families larger than eight.

At some point during the morning, I pulled out my camera and took a picture of Tables 1 thru 3 at work.


What you see here are just volunteers. The people who are here for food are to the left of the picture frame.

When the "clients" checked in, they got a specially stamped, colored slip of paper, indicating which table they should go to. Our slips of paper were blue, and I collected 97 of them.

The worst part about the day, from a selfish perspective, was that somebody had donated about a thousand pounds of cut up frozen chicken. It had been thrown (literally, I think) into plastic bags weighing 10-15 pounds, then frozen. But the bags were not sealed, and some of the chicken was defrosting. It was a sloppy mess, and I had to give a bag of the slop to each family. A good deal of it wound up on me.

I hope they cook it thoroughly.

We know people, who thought they were economically secure, who have lost their jobs. Thank God the Republicans kept government off the backs of business. I think Bernard Madoff said that.