Food

You know there’s a problem with food supply when the US’ own food banks make the front page of the New York Times.

According to the Times, shortages are attributed to “an unusual combinations of factors, including rising demand, a sharp drop in federal supplies of excess farm products, and tighter inventory controls that are leaving supermarkets and other retailers with less food to donate.”

DenUM – and thousands of other food pantries – have been feeling the ’squeeze’ for months – a squeeze that, more often than not, means closed doors until a donation comes through.

America’s Second Harvest, the nations’ largest domestic-hunger relief organization, says the shortages are the worst they have seen in 26 years, and projects an immediate food shorted of 15 million pounds of food – they are calling for help to secure and distribute a minimum of 400 truckloads before December 31st.

Something is behind all of this, and we don’t know what yet – it could be that supplies from government commodity programs have dropped from $233 million in 2004 to $67 million in 2006. It could be that the emphasis on protecting the environment through the production of ethanol is turning more farmers to corn production, and less corn towards food supply.

I don’t know the answers, but I do know this: the problems the low-income population is facing now will only creep up the socioeconomic ladder, unless we find a way to address the problem.

Things I Learned Today:

1. It is possible to have a $6,700+ utility bill.

2. In Denver, “A major snow event is defined as a foot or more of snow between November 15 and March 15 accompanied by freezing temperatures.”

Sorry I Went Missing…

Peter:
so, I feel like I shouldn’t update my blog, cause it would show you up or something
Katie:
haha
Peter:
cause I’ll have posted twice before you’ve posted once

From the mouths of babes, as they say. Having been chastised by he-who-cannot-maintain-a-blog, I find it must be time to update. And perhaps, to dedicate myself to more frequent updates. Eh, let’s not make New Year’s Resolutions that’ll be broken before the holiday even arrive.

Speaking of holidays, I just got back from a great one – I spent Thanksgiving (and several days surrounding it) with theBoyfriend in Madison. I got to meet his extended family, banged up my knee through several minor walking misjudgments, helped prepare Thanksgiving dinner, watched him in-action at Michaelangelo’s and WORT, and generally had a great time in a place that feels like home.

Now I’m back in Denver for a month before the Christmas travels begin. All the plans aren’t ironed out yet, but I do know that I’ll be in the Greater MN/WI area for nearly a week and a half, which is a beautiful thing.

I’m realizing as I write this that I’ve never shared with you some of the classic stories that have occured in the last few weeks. Stories with such titles as “8-year-olds with Broken Arms Shouldn’t Move Food,” “So Many Potatoes…” and “He Took My Jesus!” But maybe I’ll have some slow days in the coming weeks and I can catch you all in the greater web-world up. Vote in the comments for which story you want to hear first!

Oh, and here’s a picture from the Thanksgiving festivities:

Thanksgiving

I think Thanksgiving might be my new favorite holiday. At least until Christmas comes.

Thanksgiving at DenUM means it’s time for Food-for-All. Food-for-All is our only big, annual church event (right now…). We gather together a bunch of church youth groups at a church in central Denver, have them do food drives for “Thanksgiving items” and then have a big rally and pack all the food into boxes for our clients.

This is really a two week event, as client registrations start the week before and we pass out the boxes the week after.

So, yeah. Food-for-All is Sunday. And while it has been easy to focus on the stress planning and organizing of the event, moving 300+ clients through the building each day, having to turn people down because we simply don’t have the resources, and driving around town on seemingly endless food pickups, it’s time now to focus on the joy.

The joy of bringing youth together, of having the opportunity to inspire them.

The joy of talking to clients and hearing their stories and their plans for Thanksgiving.

The joy of watching 300 elementary school students sort food donations in their school gym.

The joy of it all being over in 5 days.

There really is so much to be thankful for.

Bread Man and the Courtship Cake

It has been too long since I last wrote. Too many ideas come and gone, too many stories to tell, too many tasks to accomplish at work, too many thoughts flitting through my mind.

There’s no way I can catch up on all of that.

So instead I’ll tell you a story. The story of Bread Man and the Courtship Cake.

(Sounds like one of Aesop’s fables, no?) “Once upon a time…”

No, really.

Last week I was driver for DenUM (we rotate through about every 6 weeks). Tuesday morning is when we do our bread run. So, like a good little DenUM staff person, on Tuesday morning at 9 a.m. I hopped into the cargo van and drove off to City Harvest Food Bank.

When you get to City Harvest, you have to pull up to this garage door in the alleyway, get out, ring the doorbell to get someone to open the garage door, and then pull into the warehouse. So I did that. And out came Bread Man to open the door.

Bread Man is quite the character. He’s a happy-go-lucky, 50+ year-old black man with approximately two teeth. He has a spring in his step which is probably a limp imbued with lots of energy, and I would not be surprised at all to learn that he had committed a felony or two in his lifetime.

Now, you should know a little bit about my last interaction with Bread Man. The last time I went to City Harvest, I forgot to unlock the back doors to the van before leaving DenUM – the doors don’t unlock from the outside, so if they’re locked, you have to crawl through the van to get back there and unlock them. When I do that, I usually just jump out the back door, because it’s easier than crawling back the other direction. So last time Bread Man saw me, it was as I jumped out the back door of the DenUM van.

So I pull into the warehouse. I got out the driver-side door this time, but Bread Man remembered me. “I’ve been waiting to see you again!”

“Oh?” I replied. (I’ve learned in my three months at DenUM that being a little flirty with Bread Man means we get loaves of whole grain bread instead of white hot dog buns – important for our clients!)

So, we started loading the bread into boxes. I knew that Bread Man was given me the eye, but he kept bringing out better bread, so I didn’t mind and carried on our lighthearted conversation.

As I was loading the boxes back into the van, Bread Man approached. “Hey, do you think I could take you out sometime?”

“I don’t think my boyfriend would like that very much” (I couldn’t help but grin as I imagined Peter’s reaction to this person asking me this question.)

“Aww shucks. Well, you tell me when you’re rid of him, okay?”

“Oh, I will!”

The bread was now loaded and I was filling out paperwork. Bread Man disappeared into the large walk-in cooler. Next thing I knew, he was standing beside me with a cake.

Not just any cake. A chocolate butter cream cake with red and yellow frosting. A cake that had probably fallen over in its box at the King Sooper’s bakery, judging by the look of it.

“This is for you.”

I graciously accepted what I have since dubbed “the courtship cake,” thinking, “What in the world am I coing to do with a whole cake?!”

The cake spent two days in the refrigerator at DenUM. I was about to give in and bring it home to show Beth and then put in the dumpster when one of our volunteers walked back into the food pantry.

“I have a client out front who needs a cake. It’s her birthday, and she was just wondering if we had any cake…do we have any cake?”

Poor man. It was his first day doing intakes. He certainly didn’t become any less flustered as I looked up from my post on the floor, where I was bagging leftover bread from Panera, and exclaimed, “Give her the courtship cake!”

In the craziness of the Holiday season at a food service agency and the strangeness of receiving a cake from the Bread Man, I can’t help but believe that this was a God moment.

And so I gave a client my courtship cake.

Hopefully Bread Man doesn’t find out.