As companies have approached us to partner with them to recieve food, we have been working furiously to develop good connections for outreach. We mostly want to serve the local area becaus it has many needs and that is where Carol’s Kindness started and continues to be housed. Another criteria for partnership is a group that meets our general values on food distribution. Third is the ability to pickup when they say they will, several just could not follow through.
We also had to ramp up the packaging of food that was donated to make it pantry ready. This involved dividing and packaging some of the food in smaller servings than catering pans. The nature of the donations had shifted from heavy on canned goods and grocery store daily items to much larger donations of restraunt cooked foods and prepackaged meals. The clients have been pretty excited to get the variety we offering and it really brings up the nutrition level offered.
Over the last few months we have added 3 apartment complexes with many lower income residents as partners, had one of our volunteers start a small pantry and continued to send food to the ATX freeFridges, Food Not Bombs, the kids snack pantry, our own outreach that Jeff Larson does has grown and we have had interest from a couple of other places. It does us no good to rescue the food and have to toss it in the compost or trash.
We are committed to allowing our clients to make their own selections instead of a pre-packed bag. It takes longer to distribute this way, but clients get food they want and will eat. Over the last couple of years we have gotten frequent donations of food that the clients were given at other pantries but would not eat. It is not culturally acceptable, or they just do not like that food, or do not know what to do with it. I am also hearing people do not have the pans to cook with or do not have an oven or are uncomfortable cooking. Several of our volunteers offer suggestions on how to use the items too.
If you have not seen our home page and the impact we make (in numbers), take a look: Home page
Thanks to our many donors: #sproutsfarmersmarket, #target,#specs, #costco, #pizzahut, #loveservefeed, #CentralTexasFoodBank, #LoneStarFamily, #McDonalds , #cookUnity.com, #CanteenSnackandCoffee, #PeJEvent Catering, #Pok-e-Jos https://pokejos.com/parmer-lane-restaurant/ and all the people in the community who support us with donations of food and $$.
We like to say that Carol’s Kindness is Oh So Kind. We hear this a lot.
Until next week we are putting the little truck to rest.