At the Regional Food Bank of Northeastern New York, “consistent” is always the word of the day.
“(The demand) stays pretty steady all year long. ….It’s consistent year-round and busiest during the holiday season and sometimes in the summer when kids are out of school,” said Mark Quandt, the executive director of the Food Bank.
Quandt knows the ins and outs of the 62,000-square-foot Food Bank like the back of his hand. He can wander the aisles of the warehouse and point out what everything is, even if it’s hidden within a nondescript cardboard box.
On one wall are preordered boxes, packed with items that agencies request and marked for a specific pick-up day and time.
“We provide food to food pantries, soup kitchens, other organizations across the northeast,” said Quandt.
Further up the towering metal shelves, almost reaching the ceiling, are boxes of food donated by the federal government. Across the aisle are stacks of juice boxes, soda bottles and Capris Sun pouches, and around the corner are more boxes of miscellaneous food (you can never have too much cereal, said Quandt), personal hygiene products, paper products and the occasional can of dog food. Along the dark back wall, not lit by the fluorescent lights, is food the organization purchases with money donations.
“We buy food to supplement what we get in donations. You can never get everything the agencies need in just donations,” said Quandt.
Donated food comes from just about everywhere, from individually-run food drives to businesses. Grocery stores drop off items they can’t sell (it’s called salvage) and as long as the “sell by” date isn’t too old and the inner packaging is intact, it’s fine to distributte.
“We sort through … and if the packaging is still good we can distribute that,” said Quandt. “Instead of it being thrown out, we can use it.”
On Wednesday, Feb. 1, there were stacks of Triscuit Red Chili crackers, Ritz cracker sandwiches, Cheerios, freeze pops and crates of Pepsi products. Bins of baked goods like pies and cupcakes with miniature footballs on top sat near carts piled high with bread, donated by Freihofer’s each week.
“This (pie) would be perfect for either a food pantry to give out to a family or a soup kitchen. This is a dessert that a lot of times they can’t give to people because they just don’t have the money,” said Quandt. “It’s a nice treat when you don’t have much else going on in your life to get something special like that.”
In the middle of the warehouse are a couple ropes dangling from the ceiling; give them a tug and a door will shoot up, revealing in a burst of frigid air huge walk-in freezers and coolers for dairy, produce, meat and anything else to be kept fresh. Those items are stored and brought out in batches to coolers with clear doors (like the freezers in grocery stores) where agencies can pick and choose what items they want.
Wednesday’s selection included cream, 5-pound blocks of President brand brie, pre-made pasta meals from Hannaford, dips, milk from Price Chopper, frozen veggies and more.
“This brie, that’s great for an agency and what we do here is we have a shared maintenance fee we charge, so it’s 16 cents a pound, for about five pounds, it would be 80 cents,” said Quandt. “Something like that would go for an on-site program preparing meals.”
Each day, volunteers from various agencies come by to collect what they need. Other agencies get the food delivered right to them.
“We monitor it a little bit but people take what they need,” said Quandt. “Sometimes there are some limitations on some of the items … because we have limited quantities and don’t want one or two agencies taking the whole thing.”
In the back of the warehouse, volunteers sift through boxes of food. They throw food that’s distributable on the top belt of a conveyor belt and food too damaged or expired on the bottom. Others pack the approved items in boxes for agencies to pick-up.
The Bethlehem Food Pantry receives food deliveries from the Regional Food Bank every month.
“They can be pretty big loads when they come,” said Will Vail, an outreach worker at the pantry. “We have volunteers that help unload the items that come.”
The town’s food pantry—which has one location at Town Hall and a second at the First Reformed Church of Bethlehem—used to rely solely on donations from groups and residents of the town to stock the shelves. Now, the need is too great.
“We found we couldn’t keep it stocked. The use has escalated, it has been very pronounced,” said Vail.
To meet the growing demand, the food pantry also accepts food deliveries from Food Pantries for the Capital District.
Vail said the pantry serves about 140 people and 40 families each month.
The Schenectady Inner City Ministry also gets food from the Regional Food Bank to bolster its Emergency Food Program at 839 Albany St. In 2010, the pantry served 43,787 individuals, a record, and served a total of 394,083 meals. Recipients are eligible to participate in the program up to six times a year.
Other member agencies in the Capital District include the Capital City Mission in Albany, Interfaith Partnership for the Homeless and Unity House in Troy.
For more information about the Regional Food Bank of Northeastern New York, located at 965 Albany-Shaker Road in Latham, or to find out how to volunteer, visit www.rfbneny.com.
