The good news at the Fort Bragg Food Bank this year can be summed up in the words of a famous French queen: Let them eat chicken!
Well, that”s not strictly what she said. But when we write about the Food Bank each holiday season, we try to provide a fun twist to the daily history of news. This is my fourth year being the “George Plimpton,” providing embedded reporting from deep inside the Food Bank, writing in the first person as part of our newspapers” annual Season of Sharing fundraiser.
I now look forward to my annual joining of the jovial, family environment at the north end of Franklin Street, where I”ve had my notions modified or completely changed about poverty, “freeloaders,” and the generosity of local people and businesses of all political stripes.
But until now, I”ve never really eaten true, complete meals from the Food Bank.
Thanks to a new City of Fort Bragg grant, and a “chicken in every pot” effort that has almost all the clients beaming, this good news has a great chance of continuing into the future.
Every year, I”ve become one of the clients, telling all who are interested and some who weren”t that I am a newspaper reporter seeking to get the feel for the food aspect of poverty during the holiday season. In doing so, I get to step into the story, as I did into the picture of volunteer Charles Unser showing off two of the six dozen huge pumpkins donated by Safeway — the last hurrah of Halloween.
Each week, I get to take home big grocery bags full of produce, rice, beans and bread. While doing so, I”ve met a wide variety of people. There are volunteers who laugh and eat together in an atmosphere more picnic than cubicle. There are those standoffish court-assigned guys and gals in the warehouse working off DUIs, but eventually usually being “forced” to crack a smile by the end of the day. There are elderly and disabled people who clearly wouldn”t make it without the help. There are also ungrateful slobs who throw food on the ground outside the warehouse and there are poor people so “proud” they look down their noses at the next person in line.
But this year has been the best so far, for a lot of reasons.
First, there has been only a modest increase in clients this year, Executive Director Nancy Severy confirms, and a tremendous improvement in the quality and completeness of meals.
These are not the bleak years of 2008-2009, when the economic collapse created huge crowds. Although the Food Bank is now closed on Thursdays, the crowds seem the same size as last year to me.
Next on the good news list, is a $70,000 grant the City of Fort Bragg got for the Food Bank. The city will purchase and install a walk-in freezer and an emergency power generator. The city had applied on behalf of the Food Bank in 2009 and 2008, but didn”t hit the jackpot until this year, said Jennifer Owen, grant writer for the city. The freezer will be 50 percent bigger than the old one, much, much more energy efficient, and, perhaps more importantly, allows a pallet to fit through the front door.
But the really good news is that chicken.
Chicken a plenty
“Chicken in Every Pot” is both true and ironic, as it comes from a federal stimulus program the president has tried to model on the original Franklin D. Roosevelt stimulus program, which F.D.R. called “a chicken in every pot.”
The rejuvenated federal food program was reorganized and rejuvenated to provide stimulus money to farms and meat packers. Last month, when I started taking my turn in the line again, I got an incredibly good 3-pound frozen block of brisket in my first bag, along with everybody else.
The meat is the result of a revamped U.S. Department of Agriculture food program, which has used federal stimulus money to create farm and packing jobs, as well as aiming increased productions at hungry mouths across the country.
This has made a dramatic difference at the Food Bank and added a powerful shot of protein to the usual dry groceries.
“We have gotten very, very little meats in the past. When Safeway or Harvest have donated meats, the amount has been too small for us to be able to give some to everyone, so we have given those donations to the local soup kitchens,” said Severy.
First there were those federal briskets. Mine was amazingly tender and juicy for a brisket. Then there were regular sausage patties.
Next, came the chicken.
When the state”s Emergency Food Assistance Program (EFAP) called and said they had 32,000 pounds of chicken to give away in Mendocino County, Severy knew how much good it could do locally.
“But there was no way we were going to fit that much chicken into our little walk-in freezer,” she said. “This is very unusual, for us it would have been a tragedy if we couldn”t take it.”
Out back at the Food Bank is an ancient shipping container used for dry storage but nobody has tried to use the freezer on it for many years.
Refrigeration specialist John Ruczak took on the challenge and made the engine on the container that spent decades on the high seas rumble to life again. But the monster guzzles electricity and the Food Bank crew didn”t see it as the best long-term solution.
Like a predictable plot twist in a Hallmark Christmas movie, just then word of the city grant award came through. The new generator will run the big, efficient new freezer in an emergency and even the shipping container could be a great community asset in a power outage.
In past years, we at the paper talked about how to keep these Food Bank stories from being major downers, with all the cutbacks, foreclosures and growing gap between rich and poor.
Many clients I talked to said the meat made the Food Bank much more valuable and life-giving for them.
This year everything seems to be good news. Severy said Safeway had stepped up to promise to have as many discount turkeys in stock as the Food Bank will need for the holidays. In past years, all the local grocery stores have helped, but Severy has not known until the last minute where the Food Bank would get its turkeys.
“It might not sound like much, but this is a huge burden off me, to know that we will have a definite source by which we can provide everyone a turkey at Thanksgiving and Christmas,” said Severy.
There are two more deliveries of chicken expected, just in time for the holidays and also holiday turkeys that take up lots of space too. So the Food Bank folks can”t wait for the new walk in freezer.
But wasn”t putting 32,000 pounds of chicken on their plate taking more than even the Food Bank can eat?
“We are giving this to every other food bank and every food pantry in the county,” said Severy.
Season of Sharing
The purpose of the Advocate-News and The Mendocino Beacon”s annual Season of Sharing fund drive is to raise money the Food Bank can use year-round, not just during the holidays when donations tend to flow most freely.
Last year, $21,890.29 was donated, which brought the total raised since our first fund drive in 1995 to $185,890.
The Community Foundation of Mendocino County administers the Season of Sharing free of charge as a courtesy to the newspapers. Every cent goes to the Food Bank.
Checks should be addressed to the Community Foundation of Mendocino County (CFMC), and mailed to newspaper at P.O. Box 1188, Fort Bragg, 95437, or dropped by our office, located at 450 N. Franklin St., Fort Bragg.
If you have any questions about the fund drive, call us at 964-5642. The fund-raiser runs through Dec. 31.
Donors” names are printed each week, unless you ask to remain anonymous.
