What’s happening at the Food Pantry?

Join the Gang!
The South Bay Food Pantry is First UU’s largest social-justice project, and yes, it’s always hopping.

Volunteers from First UU and the community make our large distribution happen every Saturday.   

About 550 families get about 15 lbs of groceries each -- good stuff like fresh produce, meat, bread, eggs, and pantry staples.   (Here's the math: that's 8250 lbs / week.)

What’s Changed?

• New Location: Last November, we moved from our old Broadway strip mall location to St. John’s Episcopal Church in Chula Vista (about a mile away).  
• Lottery System: Rather than try to offer food to anyone who shows up each week -- and having to turn anyone down -- we switched to a lottery system in May. Every Saturday morning, 70–75% of entrants receive appointments. Anyone who doesn’t win a morning slot can try for an "overflow" ticket later in the morning to receive remaining groceries and extra perishables that must find a home.  
• A More Peaceful Experience: Eliminating the pressure to "be first or do without"—combined with St. John's beautiful campus —has made our Saturday distributions smoother and more joyful than ever.  
• Sunday Diaper Program Ended: As of August 30th, our Sunday diaper distribution has concluded due to declining client numbers and increased reporting requirements.   This is sad news, but also lets us focus on the food mission (which always needs more attention).

What Hasn’t Changed?

• We are a Walk-Up Distribution: Clients park and walk through the lovely St. John’s courtyard, collecting food items at various stations using bags or wagons. Distribution runs every Saturday from 11:00 AM to 1:00 PM.  
• Strong Food Partnerships: Our food comes from three sources:  
  • Feeding San Diego: a giant orange truck brings fresh produce (and more…) Saturday morning.
  • San Diego Food Bank: we buy heavily-discounted meat (and more…) and every Thursday.
  • Food Rescue: we rescue just-expiring food every Friday from three area supermarkets and Con Pane bakery.  
• Dedicated Teamwork: Running Saturday distributions takes 35 to 40 volunteers, with another 15 to 20 people helping behind the scenes during the week.  
• Staff Leadership: Corina Macias continues as our deeply valued part-time staff leader, guiding operations on Saturdays and throughout the week.

What Does a Pantry Need?
You. (Even Just Occasionally!)Running a food pantry doesn't take a lot of money, but it does take time.   Rescuing food from supermarkets is especially labor-intensive -- it's wonderfully free & otherwise destined for a landfill, but needs to be sorted & picked through for suitability.   

The pantry is powered by small, close-knit volunteer crews. Each crew acts as its own mini-community: planning, scheduling, laboring, discussing and goofing-off along the way. Because our workflows are built on flexible rotations, you don't need to make a heavy weekly commitment to help.

Here is how flexible it can be:

• Monthly Rotations: Helpers cover just one Friday morning a month (8:00 AM at Food 4 Less).  
• Evening Pickups: Volunteers pick up rescued bread one Friday evening a month (5:30 PM at Con Pane).  
• On-Call & Subbing: A few step in for rare fifth Fridays, while others stay on call to jump in on Saturdays when extra hands are needed.  
• Remote Support: Others process statistics and food intake data entirely from home.

Our Greatest Needs this Fall
We are currently looking for volunteers to fill a few specific roles as we head into autumn:

• Patio Information Table: OK, it's not always easy to get word out about the greatest needs @ the pantry.   Aha, so THAT's one need:  Volunteers to set up, staff, and pack up a pantry information table on the Hillcrest patio following Sunday services.  
• Friday Coverage: Substitutes and respite workers for Friday morning and Friday evening food rescues.  
• Transport: Someone with a pickup truck available for occasional Thursday afternoon trips (1:00 PM) to the San Diego Food Bank.  
• Saturday Hands (Sept 19 & 26): We can always use extra help on Saturdays, but we have an urgent need for workers on September 19th and September 26th from 10:15 AM to 1:15 PM.

What do you think?   Time to check us out?   Let us know at [email protected].

In Pantryhood,
–deirdre
Deirdre Lonergan
An Organizer of Things 
South Bay Food Pantry

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