Table Talk

After a glorious Easter weekend, we settle back in to the everyday routine.  The Table will be jumping tomorrow.  It’s the fifth Tuesday in the month and school is off. We have a lot of volunteers on vacation, and we have a lot of bagging to do: spring break bags for children and fresh greens from Produce Source, along with donations from Bonefish Grill,  Food Lion, and our regular Jimmy John’s, Panera, Chipotle and Wawa.

We are back to normal hours this week: 9:30 to 11 a.m. and 5 to 6:30 p.m.  We can use help early in the kitchen (after 7 a.m.), again at 11 a.m. to restock for the evening session, bagging help in the kitchen at 4 p.m., and then clean up at 6:30. We are also seeking people who are willing to glean from our regular donors on a regular basis (late morning pickups) and even on an emergency basis. We get calls from local stores and restaurants with extra food that needs to be picked up in a relatively short time frame. The Food Bank is going to a new computer system in May, and we will be training our computer people on it.  Georgine can use more people at the front desk on the computers and greeting.  We need a few more to learn how to sign up people for SNAP (Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program).

Please let us know if you are interested in helping in any of these areas! Thank you!

(Ed. note: The Table is closed Feb. 16 due to weather–which is what Linda is musing about in this post from Friday: the challenges we face in never being quite sure how to plan for weather. We’ll see you Feb. 23.)

 The Snowy Day by Ezra Jack Keats was a favorite story of my children when they were young. Now, the word snow turns me in to an indecisive, glued-to-the-Weather-Channel, stressed-out person. A big storm like we just had is an easy call. Nobody was moving. In the winter time when we are buying produce from grocers, orders get placed by Thursday. The fun for me begins the Wednesday before each Table when the sales are announced. Right now–Friday–I am sitting with a beautiful order for Aldi for bananas, navel oranges, mandarins, potatoes and onions which I have not placed because of the weather. Monday has snow and freezing rain in the forecast, changing over to rain. When will it start and when will it change? If I pick up on Monday and school is cancelled, we have 160 pounds of bananas to make banana bread and smoothies out of or to distribute to various other agencies. The Food Bank is closed on Monday for President’s Day, which means no dairy or produce from them, so it’s a tough decision. So I sit and wait until Monday to see what the weather will do and hope that Aldi will be able to provide some of my wish list at the last moment.

Inventory at the Food Bank right now is low; that happens several times a year. So we will be offering some new items next Tuesday: juice and shelf-stable milk. We will have more canned vegetables and tomato products. Non-perishables are up and perishables are down. It’s a juggling act. The goal is to make what we offer as healthy as possible. To do that means checking inventory at the Food Bank four or five times a day just to grab enough for us to put out at The Table each Tuesday.

But just when things start to look gloomy, along comes a bright spot: a call from Aldi. Would we like some toilet paper? I now have 1,494 rolls of toilet paper in my garage which my husband informs me need to go by mid-March so he can go back to woodworking. Think I’ll go re-read The Snowy Day in front of the fireplace and enjoy. – Linda

One of the benefits of The Table has been the development of community: A community that works to help each other without being asked and where people feel comfortable asking for help. The Table has provided a place where people who would never have met in the normal course of their lifetimes can meet and talk and share experiences and ideas. It is a place where you can find someone willing to listen and steer you in a direction that might not have been available otherwise or even considered. St. George’s has provided comfort to those in the hospital who simply call the office, and our clergy willingly go out to visit and listen and support. The expanded community pulled together a dinner last night with the help of anyone Carey could coax in to the kitchen when the treacherous conditions kept the regular team from getting there. Many of our diners came in cold and tired and carrying shovels they’d been using to dig out the city.  They got a hot meal and a chance to sit and talk and probably compare blisters.

The cooking class scheduled for this Thursday at 10 a.m. has been moved to next Thursday, Feb. 4.  There is no snow (did I say yet?) in the forecast for next Tuesday so we hope to see everyone back.

Community.  What a wonderful word and one we are blessed to have at The Table.  Peace – Linda