The underclasswomen were having a blast finding stylish clothes at the Fort Bragg Food Bank on the day before Thanksgiving.
The days before Thanksgiving and Christmas are like the “Super Bowl” every year for the North Franklin nonprofit. Everybody turns out to serve clients all the fixings for a truly spectacular holiday meal. The pace is frantic, seeming like this is the great finale, the event everybody has been practicing for all year. In reality, of course, hunger never ends and everything starts up again as soon as the holiday dinner fest passes.
Clients waited in long lines on the Tuesday before Thanksgiving, as the Food Bank struggles with a volunteer shortage this year. The Fort Bragg High School Kiwanis Key Club students were a big help. Several high school sophomores had their first look inside the Food Bank while working at the fast, big game pace to pass out food to families. Several of the girls from the Key Club said it was the first time they had been to the Food Bank and they were surprised at the number and diversity of the clients.
“There are a lot more people who need food here in Fort Bragg than I would have thought,” said Victoria Yanez, a sophomore, who was clearly both working hard and thinking while she did her volunteer service.
“For a small town, seeing this many people is really surprising to me ?. I like to help people get their food and it”s good to get the experience from doing this” she said.
Her father is Spanish speaking, so I asked her why more Latino people do not use the Food Bank.
People of Hispanic origin comprise 32 percent of the population in Fort Bragg. Just 10 percent of Food Bank clients are Latino/Hispanic. We talked about the question for a while.
“It may be cultural, people may be hesitant to ask for help,” Yanez said.
Somehow word got back to the high school that there was great stuff to be had at the Food Bank. I”ve seen leather jackets, antiques and lots of useful things dropped off. Many people give good stuff that fits on the shelves inside, especially clothes and books. Apparently one of the high school student volunteers wore a real designer prize found at the Food Bank, bringing the crowd of four nameless freshmen girls I met the next day. The pulse-pounding pace of Tuesday had slowed on Wednesday, but things were still crazy enough that the girls went mostly unnoticed. They had brought some clothes to give and were going through the piles with giggles. One thing they weren”t giving was their names for the story. I had to be content with the joyous laughing and sorting scene.
Warm clothes needed
“We keep a free warm coat rack in our lobby and it”s pretty well known. As soon as the cool weather starts, clients stop in frequently to see if something has shown up in their size,” said Food Bank Executive Director Nancy Severy.
“Lots of folks bring in warm coats and jackets, but a couple of people come to mind. Kate (Hee) of the Outdoor Store has been collecting large quantities of coats and bringing them to the Food Bank for years. Another person who regularly adds to our warm coat rack is Bob Zoller, husband of long-time Food Bank volunteer, Bette Goldfarb. We so appreciate how folks from the community take the initiative to organize these services,” Severy said.
The volume of stuff, as well as food that moves through the Food Bank, is something that its next-door neighbor (which my business is) can truly comprehend, as the process continues even after the Food Bank is closed.
A “Gift Economy”
It was the next day, talking with Janie Rezner that I realized what the Food Bank is a “Gift Economy.”
There was a program on PBS about how Native American cultures often operated on a gift rather than trade or currency economy. Their gift of Thanksgiving dinner was something they may have hoped would inspire the pilgrims to give, not take.
Rezner recently aired a program on KZYX featuring Genevieve Vaughan, who has been working on the theory of a maternal gift economy as an alternative to patriarchal capitalism for many years. Her books include “For-giving, a Feminist Criticism of Exchange.”
Gift economies are being talked about by those who worry the world can”t survive more generations of zoom-zoom, waste-waste, shop “til the planet drops market economy. The annual Burning Man festival in the Nevada desert, which prohibits use of money and embraces the term, has become the fiery torch symbol for the concept.
A gift economy could also be called a “grace economy” as gifts are given without any requirement for reciprocation. A benefit to a gift economy is that very little gets wasted. Another is that one gift often multiplies in many directions.
That certainly is true at the Food Bank. The community-wide effort to provide the magnificent dinners on the two big holidays brings in businesses and people who give and take all year. Those who get usually can”t wait for the opportunity to give. Hardly anybody can just take, with the spirit of giving contagious in a functional gift economy like the Food Bank. The Mendocino County Grand Jury found that 95 percent of volunteers are also clients at all of Mendocino County”s food banks and pantries.
Key Club
The Kiwanis Key Club seeks to build leadership through service, which is exactly what was happening last week with the students giving their time.
Madisyn Pyorre was another Key Club member working at the Food Bank last Tuesday. Along with Yanez, she is a participant in multiple sports and extra curricular activities. These are students gaining plenty that will look good on a college resume. The service and experience those young people gave will be multiplied as the experience enriches their lives and those of others back at the school. Not to mention some surprisingly stylish clothes along the way.
The Interact and Key clubs from Fort Bragg High School provided help on the fall newsletter as well as with the pre-Thanksgiving rush, the busiest days of the year. They will both be back for the pre-Christmas game of the Fort Bragg Food Bank “big game,” ranking a close second.
“These kid”s are just super. They get a lot done really quickly and their hearts are definitely in the right place,” Severy said.
Bills to pay
Of course, the Food Bank doesn”t operate as a pure Gift Economy. Workers must be paid, with the costs of 4.2 full-time employees being more than half the $300,000 expenses $164,000 in 2012. But that is leveraged with the equivalent of 5.3 full-time employees working every day.
Gifts suddenly arrive just when they are needed. A woman from Chico who has followed the Season of Sharing series year after year in this newspaper”s online pages knits and sends hats that are in high demand.
“She delivered about 30 colorful hand-knit warm hats to us in October and called recently to say she was bringing more,” Severy said. “I”m hoping to get her name and photo when she returns. Holly and Sarah in the front office just love offering them to clients when they check in for their food. People really enjoy picking out just the right color hat.”
The Food Bank actually loves and needs cash gifts more than hats, clothes and books. I have found the cash is greatly leveraged too.
“All donations are spent in support of acquiring and distributing food to Food Bank clients,” Severy said. “This doesn”t always mean direct food purchases. We find we can stretch our dollars considerably and acquire lots more food by locating and transporting donated foods through various public and private emergency food programs. This requires the support of staff, vehicles and warehouse throughout the year, all of which takes funding.”
767 families received Thanksgiving dinner
As to the results of the Turkey Challenge and the holiday meal, it went much better last week than it did for Natives in that legendary gift economy.
“We served 767 client families for Thanksgiving. Second highest number of people ever served down just slightly from our peak of 778 last year.
“This year folks had their choice of a turkey or a roaster chicken. Some people preferred the smaller bird and we were satisfied that extra turkey meat wasn”t going to waste. The hams were missed so we”ll make an effort to have them for a choice for Christmas,” Severy said.
The Food Bank also tried to get tofurkeys for vegetarians but those items, so often mocked by comedians, were so much in demand none could be acquired, even with the help of local grocery stores.
Donations are well-spent
The point of saying all this about the gift economy is it”s exciting to see one actually work, which I have at the Food Bank over the years as their neighbor and as a reporter. People bring stuff that other people can use. Those who receive give all they can. Sent here as part of Season of Sharing to be sure money was being spent well, I found dollars were truly being stretched, not wasted.
“The Grand Jury was impressed with the administration of the Fort Bragg Food Bank,” concluded last year”s investigation of the county”s three food banks. The others got no such praise.
No dumping, please
Jerks can spoil everything. That was a problem a few years ago when a particular landlord decided to dump left behind and useless furniture and other stuff out front, which encouraged more of the ugly same from others. A cancer grew along with a trash pile. The brakes had to be put on the gift economy for a while.
“We”ve managed to convince most people to stop dumping ratty furniture and broken appliances so this isn”t as big a problem as it used to be,” Severy said. “Many people will call and ask us first if we want the larger item. We take a few and turn away most as we have no storage space for them and they deteriorate out in the weather.”
In a gift economy, ugly gifts are the ultimate insult and costly to the community, too.
“It”s important for people to know that if they dump stuff here, the Food Bank ends up having to pay waste disposal fees to get rid of it and yes, this is money we would have been able to spend on food. The only items we routinely welcome are clothes in good condition (especially warm coats), blankets and sleeping bags and books. Folks should talk to staff before leaving anything else,” Severy said.
Season of Sharing
Since the 1996 holiday season, the Advocate-News and The Mendocino Beacon have raised roughly $301,543 for the Food Bank through the Season of Sharing fund drive. Since 1999, the nonprofit Community Foundation of Mendocino County has administered the drive as a courtesy to the newspapers, which means that every penny donated goes directly to the Food Bank.
“There are many dozens of nonprofit organizations in our area, all very worthy of support, but the Food Bank addresses the most basic problem facing hundreds of individuals and families hunger,” said Publisher Sharon DiMauro. “The goal is to give the Food Bank money it can use year-round, not just during the holidays. It doesn”t matter a bit whether a person contributes through our fundraiser or directly to the Food Bank, the main thing is to contribute and if you”re able, to give year-round.”
How to donate
? By check: Make check payable to The Community Foundation of Mendocino County (CFMC) and mail or deliver to the Advocate-News, 450 N. Franklin St., Fort Bragg 95437.
? By credit card: Pay via CFMC”s website, www.communityfound.org. Click “Donate Online,” then “Poverty Related Funds” and select “Season of Sharing Fund (Fort Bragg Food Bank).
Questions? Please call us at 964-5642.
This week”s donors
The names of donors who contribute through the newspapers or CFMC”s website are printed each week, unless they ask to remain anonymous.
At the end of the drive, which runs through Dec. 31, the names of everyone who donates to the 2013 Season of Sharing will be reprinted.
In addition to appearing in the Advocate and The Beacon, the weekly installments are posted on both newspapers” websites.
As of press time Wednesday, donations from Myra Figueiredo, Donna Brown, Donna Feiner, Mel and Susan McKinney, Winston and Rebecca Bowen, the Mendocino Coast Gem & Mineral Society, Jan Boyd, Forest and Patricia Tilley and an anonymous donor brought the Season of Sharing fund drive total to $1,270.
