Food Drive Round Up

As promised, here is your Thanksgiving Week Food Drive Round Up! Even with two days off, this week was full of food drive pick ups all over the region.

First up on Monday morning was a pick up from the Springboro Area Small Business Network. Despite its name, the location had a Lebanon address, which confused my GPS so much that General Paulette just couldn't put them on the map. Instead, we followed MapQuest directions, which led us to this cool old farmhouse on a very rural country road:

Turns out the food was being stored in the garage of this house, so we were in the right place. With several more stops scheduled that day, we decided not to dawdle and just threw the bags of food in the back of the truck.

Of course we ended up paying for that later. Our next stop was at Summit Academy, a private school in Middletown. The school had two barrels and a ton of overflow food--all located in the school's basement, with no elevator. A teacher sensed my nervousness about getting all of this food loaded before sundown, and recruited a bunch of kids on their way to martial arts class to help carry the food out. They even brought us the barrels!

Alex and I needed to construct some boxes and organize the food from our last stop, so we had the kids set the food down in the parking lot next to Gus. Here they are:

After a bit of a delay in Middletown getting Gus organized and loaded up, we were set to pick up 9 barrels from an organization called Catnip 'N Carrots. (For more information about this organization and their food drive, click here.) Once again, Alex and I found ourselves in a residential neighborhood where the food was stashed in a friendly woman's garage. Somehow, we got all 9 barrels into the truck.At this point, Gus was very full of food and barrels, so we went back to Shared Harvest to drop off the food and get some lunch. By 12:45 we were ready to go back out for 3 more food drive pick ups.

Our first stop Monday afternoon was to a PNC Bank near Fairfield. Sadly, their food drive wasn't too successful and I was able to lift and carry the barrel+food without any assistance. Keep in mind, I'm not that strong, so it wasn't a whole lot of food. Still, every little bit helps.

Next we drove to Sacred Heart Elementary School, a private school in Fairfield. Alex and I had delivered 3 barrels to this location just last week, so we didn't anticipate a large amount of food.

We were wrong. This is what we found when we arrived:

It literally took Alex and me HOURS to pack and load this food into Gus. In addition to the three barrels, we filled 15 boxes as well. By the time we had finished, Shared Harvest was closed and we still had one more stop!

Our last stop was to Petland in Fairfield. After the massive response from Sacred Heart, we were a little disappointed to find a completely empty barrel inside Petland. We were just about to take our empty barrel and leave, but the employees asked us to leave it for a little while longer with the promise of more food next time we came back. By the time we returned to Shared Harvest, everyone else was long gone (except for Holli!) so we had to wait to unload and weigh the food.

On Tuesday morning, Alex had a doctor's appointment for her ankle, so I accompanied Holli to 3 local Kroger locations to empty the contents of their food drive barrels. We ended up working so fast and so efficiently, though, that we decided to go ahead and pick up at all 8 of our locations listed for the day. Unfortunately, I didn't have my camera, so I don't have any pictures. But at the rate we were packing boxes and loading barrels, I don't know if I would have had time to take any pictures anyway!

So here's the totals from all of the food drive pick ups this week.

Monday, 11/23
Springboro Area Small Business Network: 180 lbs.
Summit Academy: 655 lbs.
Catnip 'N Carrots: 370 lbs.
PNC Bank: 16 lbs.
Sacred Heart Elementary: 1166 lbs.
Petland: 0 lbs. (so far!)

Tuesday, 11/24
Kensington Apartments: 100 lbs.
Camelot East Apartments: 235 lbs.
Tanfastic: 105 lbs. (so far)
Progressive Rehab.: 80 lbs.
WellPoint Anthem: 529 lbs.
(And contents from barrels at three Kroger locations--but I don't know their weights right now!)

All in all, 3436 pounds of food came through Shared Harvest from area schools, churches, and businesses' food drives. In two days. Wow.

What some people may not realize, is that this food, although collected before Thanksgiving, was not distributed for the holiday this week. In fact, this food will not be distributed for a couple of weeks. Staff members at the foodbank have to go through every box and barrel, item by item, to make sure everything is safe to eat, which can take a little while. The food that went out this week to our partner pantries was most likely collected in late October/early November, and this round of donations will probably make it out in time for Christmas. Thus, the food collected between now and Christmas will probably be distributed in late December/early January. Of course, this isn't a bad thing--people will still be hungry long after the Christmas lights are taken down, so please keep donating! Your donations will make a difference at any time of the year.

Just a little Food Drive 101.