With the Season of Sharing coming to an end, I realize I will miss more than just the vittles at the Fort Bragg Food Bank.
Each week during the holiday season, I have shared food and borrowed positive energy from the clients, volunteers and staff at the Food Bank as part of our annual Season of Sharing series which supports the newspapers” fund-raising for the Food Bank. I found a spirit of giving, reuse and recycling while living on the edge.
And that is everybody, not just the clients.
When I was in college my parents once helped me move out of a tiny apartment. I went around and picked up every nickel, in fact every penny on the floor, where change had often flown when I was in a hurry. The money was enough to by the three of us a steak and seafood dinner in Eureka.
It”s that kind of thrill the Food Bank offers, hustling and smiling while turning the leavings of society into both fun and food.
One grant bought a new sink. Everywhere you look, they are making a dollar out of 15 cents.
After a frenetic holiday season, the staff is now able to concentrate on upgrades and grants.
This week, Food Bank Executive Director Nancy Severy told me about an $1,820 United Way grant that couldn”t be used to buy food, pay staff or any of the usual expenditures. The grant will be used to buy a second computer for the Food Bank.
Several volunteers have offered to help with office work.
“But up until now they had to bump me off my computer. This will allow them to help,” she said.
She will also eke out money for travel to several other larger Food Banks, where she hopes to learn new ideas.
The Food Bank has clearly improved its nutritional content over last year, thanks to a large “grant” unwillingly made by vitamin companies, which had engaged in a conspiracy to control world prices. That money is still being stretched out by the Food Bank.
Donated moneys are mostly used to fund the pickup of free food. Severy says the Food Bank can get more good food that way than by buying food wholesale.
Severy hopes to add dried fruit such as raisins so that kids will have healthier snacks. The Food Bank needs donated canned foods high in proteins, from canned tuna to beans.
I joked about the canned mandarins I got one day in line, with none of the volunteers willing to take them off my hands.
“Actually canned mandarins provide quite a bit of good nutrition, both protein and vitamins” Severy said.
But even Severy can get a laugh from some of the items. She has a can in her office that proclaims itself as “spotted dick.” A closer look at the fine print reveals it to be an English “steamed suet pudding.” That actually doesn”t sound any better.
I was puzzling over one bulk giveaway of chocolate fondue offered to Food Bank clients. I wasn”t sure what to do with the hard black circle designed to fit into a cup for heating.
“Maybe you could try eating it like a candy bar,” suggested the bearded man in line next to me.
“Too thick,” I said. The chocolate fondue got lots of laughs, but not many takers.
Somebody donated two gargantuan typewriters last week, a gift I found to be a tad offensive. Typewriters are trash, I proclaimed, having used one on my first reporting job. But volunteers said somebody would want them. Sure enough, one was gone by Tuesday of this week.
Somewhere in Fort Bragg somebody has both a typewriter and a record player.
It is not all laughs. Some Food Bank clients are teetering on the edge and frightened of what is happening out there in the world.
While the Food Bank is basically open to anyone, not everybody is getting the help they need elsewhere.
An example is Food Stamps.
An offhand remark I made about Food Stamp eligibility was incorrect. Cars are exempt from the $2,000 limit on assets required to be eligible for Food Stamps.
Sandi Brown, who now heads up that program, said the limit is $3,000 if everybody in the household is elderly or disabled.
The rules are different for Medi-Cal, which also has a $2,000 asset limit. One car is exempt in that program.
I”m hoping my mistake about the car exemption helps show how daunting and confusing it can be to apply for the program. When I filled out the extensive Medi-Cal questionnaire about my car, I felt nervous and worried.
Was my 1994 Ford van with 150,000 miles too upscale? It was hard for me to tell what the questions were all about.
Then I found out I was ineligible because of a rusty pickup I owned. Two cars worth less than $4,000 combined means a fate worse than bankruptcy should I be injured without health insurance.
County statistics indicate 43 percent of those eligible for Food Stamps don”t accept the Food Stamps. If anybody is truly working hard and saving up to better themselves, the paltry $2,000 limit would be quickly surpassed. Should an eligibility worker see that you have $2,010 in the bank, technically you are breaking the law. Or should your scattered stocks, bonds, retirement accounts, savings and checking assets add up to more than $2,000.
Brown would like to see those struggling to get enough to eat to apply.
“We have a deep concern that people who may be eligible are going without the food they so desperately need simply because they think they won”t be eligible. It never hurts to apply for any of our services and let us determine the eligibility,” she said.
Season of Sharing
The goal of the Advocate-News and Mendocino Beacon”s annual Season of Sharing fund drive is to raise money to help the Food Bank operate year-round, not just during the holidays. Last year the community donated $37,214.15; this year”s target was $40,000.
Donors” names are printed each week, unless they ask to remain anonymous. Donations received this week from Stephen and Kolleen Hart, Joe Mickey and Connie Korbel brought this year”s total to $28,714.
“Though we fell short of our goal, the community”s response was as generous as ever,” said Publisher Sharon DiMauro. “Everyone is feeling the effects of the country”s economic downturn, but still found a way to contribute and help the Food Bank. We can”t thank you enough.”
Thank to the following individuals and businesses who donated to the 2008-09 Season of Sharing: Janice Boyd, Patricia Frobes and Richard Smith, Charles Lee in memory of Jean, Gilbert and Marian Roden, Little River Inn, Dr. P.P. Coukoulis, David and Sara O”Donnell, J.R. Harrison, Myra and Joseph Figueiredo, Frank and Shirley Collins, Marguerite Courtney, Boyd and Mary Kay Hight, Janice and Stephen Walker, Forest and Patricia Tilley, In memory of Nonie and Fred Grass, Rosemarie and Craig Walter, Kitty Bruning, from her OB staff, Edwin and Theresa Branscomb, anonymous in honor of the Advocate-News and Beacon”s staff, Robert and Leatrice Callan, Patricia Galligan and Dianne Miller, Trinity Lutheran Church Hope Circle, Noyo Women for Fisheries, M. Jane Vartanian, Davis Pyorre, Robert and Mary Gerbi, Craig Blencowe, Christopher Blencowe, Megan Blencowe, Dennis Jecmen, Thomas and Lois Schultz, the Mendocino Coast Gem Mineral Society, the James G. Cummings Fund, Andrew Klasik, Jeffrey Flynn and Linda Lasell, Robert and Christine Sowers, Robert and Susan Krebs, Patricia Sinkay, Marianne McGee, Bruce and Karen Smith, Connie Reynolds, Alan Antow, Louis Bohannon, Sean Wills, Spring and Henry, Susanne and Richard Norgard, Ann Krase, Bruce and Regine Plows, Jeanette Hansen, the staff at Dr. Wilensky, D.D.S., Joan Kennedy White, A Tile Shoppe, Computaccount, Frank and Margaret Iacuaniello, Lark Camp, Ronald and Susan Munson, William Anderson, Helen Van Gelder, Fiddlers Green Nursery, Betty Lou Hartzell, Glen and Paula Ivey, Paul and Nancy Kemp, Kathleen Kohn Fetzer Family Foundation, Olivia Barrager, Sharon Hansen, Paula Cohen, Richard and Janet LaPierre, Stephen and Kolleen Hart, Joe Mickey and Connie Korbel and 13 anonymous donors.
