Grace and I spent a couple of hours this afternoon with a group from our church helping out at the Latham Food Bank. We spent 2 hours sorting and condensing cookies! We unwrapped at least 12 pallet fulls of cookies - unpackaged them from their boxes intended for display - and condensed it down to fewer pallets of more tightly packed cookies and at least 3 pallets full of unnecessary cardboard (that they will recycle)! This will save the Food Bank big bucks in freight charges! Then we went to Price Chopper and bought ourselves some COOKIES! Wish I had taken my camera. Grace was quite a hard worker - but would only sort cookies - not the crackers. Quite the discriminating volunteer!
WHAT AN OPERATION - - - and I mean that in only the MOST complimentary way.. It's HUGE - well organized and does SO much good for thousands of people. Apparently tons of food gets wasted - right at the manufacturer in this country. The woman said as much as 28% ends up being thrown away - that is actually edible. Stuff that is misslabeled, almost expired, past the marketing or labeling it was given, etc.. Raisin Bran with too few or too many raisins, orange juice accidently put in grapefruit juice labels, etc.. Tyically just tossed to the dump. They try to obtain it - deal with it and put it into the hands of Food Pantrys to get to those that NEED it.. I think she said that facilities like this are in several places around the country! Wonderful place to go volunteer for a couple of hours with teens..... It is immense - you should see the freezer. It is several times larger than my house! Grace was intrigued by the pallet FULL of fish sticks!
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