Our first goal at Carol’s Kindness has been to rescue food and keep it out of the landfill then to pass it on to people in need so nothing goes to waste. It takes 45-50 volunteers per week to pull this off, Carol on the phone hours and hours, 6 freezers, 5 refrigerators, 12 good sized coolers and 1 1/2 garages of rolling racks.
Every day we have pickups scheduled at local groceries and warehouses. Volunteers load the food into their cars and bring it to Carol’s for sorting, weighing and storage until Friday/Saturday. Some of the foods in larger packages is broken down into smaller bags, labeled and set aside to put out. Although this might not meet the total needs for the households, it provides for a more equitable selection. On Friday and Saturday teams of volunteers pack food into boxes and coolers and transport it to the Gus Garcia Rec Center where additional volunteers sort it onto tables and make it presentable for “shopping” on Saturday afternoon. We try to have a variety of foods in each area so clients can select the foods they want for their household.
In November alone we collected 20,951 pounds of food! That food went to 2300 people, almost 400 over 60, 500 under 18 and 350 unhoused!
We share with a number of other organizations too so nothing goes to waste. what cannot be shared goes to composting.