Friday, August 12, 2011
Food Pantry in the U.S.—Foodbanks in Different Countries: No. 2
Second Harvest Japan (2HJ) Volunteer Coordinator Megumi Takahara attended the food bank training in the U.S. In this second report she reports about two food pantry programs in the U.S., a food assistance program that provides food for needy individuals and households.
I attended the two-week food bank training in the U.S.!
I visited the U.S. that has more than 40 years of history of food banking for attending a training session. Between February 27 and March 13, I visited food banks in San Antonio, Texas; Phoenix, Arizona; San Francisco, CA. I attended the food bank training session in Texas, and studied primarily volunteer activities and food pantry programs in both Arizona and California.
Report No. 2: Food pantry programs in the U.S.
Food pantry program in San Antonio, Texas
During the training session by Global FoodBanking Network (GFN) the participants had an opportunity to see the pantry of “Urban Connection” in San Antonio, Texas.
It is a community development organization founded by a Christian society to aim at “Healthy Kids, Healthy Families, Healthy Community”. The organization, located in a residential area, houses Kids Cafe, where light meals and snacks are provided for free for children, and organizes several events for children as well.
One of its important programs is a food pantry program. In the pantry food delivered from the San Antonio Food Bank is sorted and packed into bags according to the size of recipient’s household. In the program, data such as distribution dates are recorded in cards. This is similar to what we do at the pantry program of 2HJ.
The organization, which welcomes anybody in need from Monday through Friday, not only provides food, but also offers a consultation service by full-time staff for those in need on issues such as employment and domestic problems.
Urban Connection, as its name says itself, strengthens “connections” between the residents to save them from being alienated.
The state of Texas, where the San Antonio Food Bank provides food assistance, has the poverty rate of 20.5 percent, and has the second largest number of people who lack the food security in the U.S.
The U.S. has the highest poverty rate among the OECD member countries, and the state of Texas in particular faces serious poverty problems in the U.S. I felt that private social welfare organizations can play very important roles there.
If, like Urban Connection, a community-based social welfare organization functions as the hub of food pantries in Japanese communities as well, more people could be supported more effectively.
The sign of Urban Connection on the wall. A typical American house has turned into a community center.
The food pantry. Canned food and other non-perishable food are stored, which is same as in 2HJ’s pantry.
Bags of Food. One bag is for one household.
Food pantry program in Phoenix, Arizona
After the training session in San Antonio, the participants flew to Phoenix, Arizona, which has the world’s first foodbank, St. Mary’s Food Bank.
The foodbank deals with more than 30,000 tons of food every year. In one of its four locations is a gigantic warehouse, which is bigger than 9,900 square meters (11,840 square yards or 2.45 acres), and the warehouse also has an enormous satellite building which functions as a pantry called Knight Transportation Community Services Center (Knight Center).
A household in need of food assistance can basically receive food once a month. The pantry is open from 9:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. from Monday to Friday, and those in need can come and pick up food any time convenient to them during its business hours.
Most people come to the pantry in their cars, because they receive a large amount of food. You would be amazed to see Knight Center handling a huge number of people smoothly.
The reception room looks like a bank’s reception lobby: chairs line up in an orderly fashion and the partitioned reception desks in the back.
At the entrance a numbered tag is allotted to those who come, and when their number is called, they go to the reception desk.
First-timers are asked to show their identification with their address for registration. Once registered, they are eligible for food for free.
Information about recipients such as their address, the number of their family members, and the record of their food reception in the past is input into the database.
On behalf of those who live in a shelter a caseworker comes to the pantry. After the reception, recipients are handed a food bag according to the number of their family members.
I had an opportunity to interface with recipients at the reception desk half a day. Knight Center’s Receptionist Mina kindly taught the reception procedure to me, a complete novice. Recipients come to the pantry continuously from the beginning of a day.
A woman came to my reception desk. As she was a first-timer, I asked questions about her. At first she looked nervous and seemed to be in conflict with receiving food assistance over her pride.
After a while she began to talk about her situation. It turned out that she had lost her job as a bus driver a few months before and that she had been hanging on tenuously by digging into her savings.
In the U.S. low-income people can receive a food stamp as one of the food assistance programs for low-income individuals.
But she was not eligible for food stamp, because she had been paid just three dollars more than the threshold to some social security program.
When she was at a loss, her relative told her about St. Mary’s Food Bank’s food pantry program.
I told her that she could receive food once every month from then on. When Mina said to her, “Since you have a bus driver’s license, why don’t you bring your resume here? You might get a chance to work for a foodbank”, she thanked us in tears.
That was when I came to understand the true reason why a foodbank operated a food pantry.
In a food pantry program anybody can receive food, although an amount of food given to each recipient varies according to the family size.
St. Mary’s Food Bank Chief Operations Officer Norm Gold said, “A few people out of 100 might take advantage of our food pantry program, but our first priority should be to make sure that every one of those really in need can receive food.”
The U.S. government offers various food assistance programs in collaboration with foodbanks.
For example, a program for the elderly offers a monthly food package to those at sixty or over who earn less than the threshold according to the size of their household. There is a similar program for children under six. For those who are not covered by these governmental programs, private food pantries exist.
The outlook of Knight Center. Most recipients come in their cars.
The reception room. Looks like a bank’s reception lobby.
The reception desk. Here I interfaced with recipients half a day.
Behind the reception desk. Volunteers are preparing food packages.
You might also like this:
Turkey, Australia, Guatemala—Food Banks in Different Countries: No. 1
Link to News story »
Wednesday, July 27, 2011
From Aug 14 to 21, 2HJ’s Office Will be Closed
2HJ’s office will be closed from Aug 14 to 21. Please be advised to send donation packages to 2HJ’s office before or after those dates.
Thank you very much!
You might also enjoy:
Turkey, Australia, Guatemala—Food Banks in Different Countries
2HJ’s newsletter: Harvest News 2011 Issue No. 1
2HJ is now on Twitter! Follow us in English or in Japanese.
Link to News story »
Thursday, July 21, 2011
Turkey, Australia, Guatemala—Food Banks in Different Countries: No. 1
2HJ Volunteer Coordinator Megumi Takahara attended the food bank training in the U.S. This time, she reports about food banks of different countries.
I attended the two-week food bank training in the U.S.!
I visited the U.S. that has more than 40 years of history of food banking for attending a training session. Between February 27 and March 13, I visited food banks in San Antonio, Texas; Phoenix, Arizona; San Francisco, CA.
I attended the food bank training session in Texas, and studied primarily volunteer activities and food pantry programs in both Arizona and California.
Report No. 1: Diverse food banks in the world
This trip started at the training session by Global Foodbanking Network (GFN) in San Antonio. GFN located in Chicago offers one-week training sessions every year to members of food banks and planning committees from all over the world.
Members of food banks from 22 countries got together in San Antonio to study American food banking and made presentations about the efforts in their countries.
Second Harvest Japan (2HJ) defines food banking as efforts to collect unmarketable food from food companies and redistribute them to charitable agencies that support those in need for free. But there are diverse food banks in the world and that surprised me.
I was interested particularly in the following three food banks.
Social Market in Turkey
In Turkey, the mayor of Beyoglu district of Istanbul, the largest city in Turkey, started a food bank. The mayor and Turkish Red Crescent Istiklal branch worked together to collect food, clothes, and other daily necessities from individual and corporate donors and distribute them among the poor. The efforts had evolved into an organization, Social Market, initiated by the Beyoglu mayor in 2010.
Social Market looks like a super market with its items displayed on shelves but all their products are free and available only to those in need who registered with the organization. For the registration, Social Market staffers visit and interview clients about their financial situations and the number of family members. Once registered, each household receives a red card.
This card has points according to the number of family members and their income. You could acquire items at a casher within your points. Since they don’t have advanced system like this even in the U.S., American food banks were also interested in it.
It was established in 2010 and now they have two other branches. Since it was initiated by the mayor, the word, food bank, is in their legal documents and donors can receive tax write-offs as well. All the donated items at Social Market has bar codes on them and their information automatically gets into its database.
Donors can receive tax write-offs simply by submitting receipts of the donations to the authority.
In most countries, food banks are run by the nonprofit sector. But in Turkey, food banks are part of the welfare policies for the poor.
Social Market Beyoglu: http://www.beyoglusosyalyardim.com/ (in Thurkish)
Large Food banks in Australia
The Australian food banks are probably the most similar to American counterparts among the participant food banks in terms of scale and activities. Food banks operate across Australia and provide food for more than 70,000 people every day through 2,900 social welfare agencies.
You would be aware how many social welfare agencies they collaborate with by comparing them with 2HJ, which had about 600 partner agencies and organizations in 2010. They handled 19 million kilos (19,000 tons) of food and groceries in 2010 and aim at 50 million kilos (50,000 tons) by 2013.
Every state has a food bank. They all operate as an independent non-profit organization and form a food bank network. The main reason for having the network is that they can collectively make a contract with large firms, rather than each food bank makes a contract with them.
At the same time, being independent enables them to cooperate with local governments and social welfare agencies in a way sensitive to local needs and to operate community-based activities. They also frequently exchange information about best practices between them.
At their national conference, policies at the national level are decided by the chairpersons of the participant states. Also, representatives from each food bank gather together to discuss policies and business plans a few times a year.
While most Australian food banks distribute donations to recipient agencies, in Queensland, which is the second largest state located in north-eastern Australia, there is a food bank that has their recipient agencies come to the food bank’s site to pick up donations.
I heard that it had taken years before recipient agencies finally started the pick-up system because securing trucks and drivers for the pick-up had been quite a burden on the agencies.
The recipient side agreed to cooperate in the pick-up after they had figured out that the pick-up would result in an overall advantage to them because Queensland food bank always had enormous amount of necessities for agencies such as vegetables and fruits. In other states donations are distributed by volunteers who drive their own cars or in cooperation with local governments.
Food Banks in Australia: http://www.foodbank.com.au/
Food banks Sell Foods in Guatemala
Several Guatemalan companies had meetings with GFN in 2001 to learn about food banking. In 2005, nine companies and a foundation established a food bank. The food bank started its full operations in the following year.
The Guatemalan food bank, now the only one there, is enlightening Guatemalans about food banking. It aims at the construction of the food bank network.
Since its establishment in 2005, the food bank has been providing 4,000 food bags every month, which adds up to food distribution to 190,000 people every year.
The distinctive feature of the Guatemalan food bank is that it sells all its food at 12 percent of each item’s retail price. Of course, food donors are aware that their donated food are sold. One of the reasons for selling donation items rather than giving them for free is that the food bank could earn its administrative fees.
There is another reason, however, which has something to do with Guatemalan culture. Once food are available free of charge, some Guatemalans are very likely to become so dependent upon free food that they lose the incentive to work.
So, the food bank has chosen to sell food to keep Guatemalans reminded to work to obtain what they need for themselves. I felt the Guatemalan food bank’s strong hope that people get out of poverty for themselves.
Banco de Alimentos de Guatemala: http://www.bag.org.gt/ (in Spanish)
Japanese Food Banks from Outside Perspectives
As described above, how a food bank operates varies greatly from country to country.
Compared with food banks in other countries, Japanese food banks have two unique features. The first feature lies in our message.
While foreign food banks lay stress on ending poverty, eradicating hunger, or saving people in poverty, Japanese food banks lay as much stress as on unnecessary waste too.
No other participant food banks send out a message that food loss should be decreased, like Japanese food banks.
For example, a Canadian food bank’s annual report had no article or data about food loss.
The second feature of Japanese food banks is found in their relationships with donor companies.
Most participant food banks appeal to potential donor companies actively for donations by making phone calls to them.
In the training session, we had a workshop in which participants were handed a list of questions and asked to respond to them.
One of the questions was “You have been making phone calls and sending emails to the person you know at a partner company several times to ask for donation, but received no response yet. What do you think you should do next?”
After participants expressed their opinions, we reached a consensus that we should contact somebody else who can contact the person.
2HJ has never appealed for donations as aggressively as this, so I felt a large gap between Japan and other countries.
The gap might have something to do with how to achieve a mission.
“Collect donation food and distribute them to those in need” sounds simple, but how to achieve it varies between countries.
The training sessions gave me an opportunity to review Japanese food banks objectively by learning about other food banks as well as American ones.
I am looking forward to seeing how Japanese food banks will develop from now on while they are adjusting themselves to respond to the needs of the age in cooperation with various companies and people across borders.
Such a development has already started since March 11.
You might also like this:
Food Pantry in the U.S.—Foodbanks in Different Countries: No. 2
Link to News story »
Friday, July 08, 2011
Harvest News: 2011 Issue No. 1
474 tons: This is the number of food and supplies donated to Second Harvest Japan (2HJ) between March 11 through May 31. In this issue of our Harvest News, we update you about our disaster relief efforts in Norther Japan. Thank you for your continuous support!
Contents for 2011 Issue No. 1 include:
-Second Harvest Japan responded quickly to the disaster
-Stories from Our Disaster Relief Blog
-A Thank-You from 2HJ Executive Director
-2HJ ‘s Long-term Plan for the Disaster Relief
Click to view 2011 Issue No. 1 [PDF: 440 KB]
We need your support!
・Volunteer
・Make a donation
Now online donation is available!
You might also enjoy:
Second Harvest Japan Disaster Relief Blog
2HJ’s new video - Thank you very much for your support!
Volunteer interview No.6: Yuko Sakagami
2HJ is now on Twitter! Follow us in English or in Japanese.
Link to News story »
Saturday, June 04, 2011
Volunteer interview No.6: Yuko Sakaue
For the sixth interview of our series of Volunteer to Volunteer Interviews, Ryoma Kobayashi, interviewee of the last interview, asks Yuko Sakaue about her volunteer experience at 2HJ.
1. Why did you start volunteering at 2HJ?
I wanted to make a social contribution for a long time, but I couldn’t get such a chance, because I had a full-time job. One day I heard about 2HJ and was impressed with its meaning; the second time of harvesting foods that would otherwise be doomed to go to waste. Until then I didn’t know about foodbank, and I was surprised that there was such an organization. Also, I learned that 2HJ was expanding its activities and spreading an idea of foodbank. I immediately wanted to get involved in its activities and wasted no time in applying for volunteer work at 2HJ. Many Japanese people might think that having an excess is better than having a shortage and that ending up having leftovers is no problem. I sometimes encounter such a situation, and I think that something is wrong with it. Considering that there’s an excess of foods in Japan, whereas some people cannot afford to buy enough foods for different reasons, 2HJ’s way of supporting those in need is quite suitable in the current Japanese situation. A very meaningful activity indeed.
2. What do you usually do at 2HJ?
I’ve been volunteering at 2HJ for over 2 years. At first I helped with Saturday soup kitchen. Later, I started helping with the Harvest Pantry program, where we send out food packages to households, mostly to refugees and single mothers, and hand over them to those who come to 2HJ. Now I help with the program twice a month. Saturday soup kitchen and the Harvest Pantry program are similar in that they both provide foods for those in need, but they are different in another way. Running a soup kitchen takes a lot of time in its preparation and many volunteers. On the other hand, at the Harvest Pantry program you have relatively enough time to think about recipients. This is one of its attractions for me. I enjoy choosing foods for each recipient, taking it into account that what sort of and how much of foods would suit best the number of each recipient household, their ethnicity, and their preference.
3. What aspect of the Harvest Pantry program is enjoyable or interesting to you?
Seeing recipients smiling makes me happy. Some of the recipients come to 2HJ, and we hand over foods to them. Everybody naturally grins in front of different kinds of foods. I think that foods have great natural power to calm and heal people. Nobody is unhappy, when they are full up. I sometimes run around in the pantry, because I want to see every recipient smiling and satisfy their needs. When they say, “Thank you”, with a smile to us, I respond by saying back to them, “Thank you for coming to 2HJ all the way” and feel happy. This wonderful interaction between recipients and volunteers by means of foods is another attraction of 2HJ’s activities. If I may digress, I’m a salesperson for an advertising company, and pressured to make profits everyday. The most important thing is, of course, to make profits. Honestly, I find such an idea hard to swallow. In 2HJ’s activities, on the contrary, there exist no tangible “profit” and “return”. That is very comfortable for me, and it helps me maintain a balance in daily life. Now volunteering at 2HJ is an important part of my life.
4. What do you think can be improved about 2HJ?
Nothing in particular! LOL Lots of people are involved in the activities, so there would be some inconveniences or problems. But we all voluntarily commit ourselves to the activities and we’re independent. I think that volunteer work has been organized more and more efficiently. I’m always supported by other volunteers. I can do only a little, but I always feel satisfied, when we finish our job. If I was allowed to say a word… If only we could wash plates inside, not outside. I have to confess that I’m sometimes daunted in midsummer and midwinter. LOL
5. Do you have any message to those who cannot yet make up their minds if they volunteer?
Try not just one volunteer work, but some, then opportunities will expand. And you can find the best match for you among them. I started out as a soup kitchen volunteer, and now I’m involved in the Harvest Pantry program. Volunteer work at 2HJ is well organized, and meeting volunteers with different backgrounds is certainly an attraction. They are at different ages and have different jobs. They are all really friendly and affable. You can receive a lot by donating some of your precious time. You’ll have an enjoyable and meaningful experience.
Translated by Hiroto Nagaoka
If you like this story, you might also enjoy:
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Volunteer interview No.5: Ryoma Kobayashi
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