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Food Bank Collecting More Nutritional Foods

Posted on: Tuesday, 20 June 2006, 15:00 CDT

By Jens Manuel Krogstad, Waterloo-Cedar Falls Courier, Iowa

Jun. 19--WATERLOO -- For years Don Frost and Merlin Harbaugh have picked up food from local businesses for the Northeast Iowa Food Bank.

They'd pull out of the Northeast Iowa Food Bank in a small truck by 7:30 a.m. and make the rounds to places like Hy-Vee, Target and Panera Bread to collect perishable foods. For the most part, their haul included a hearty helping of carbohydrates: white bread, wheat bread, French bread, cupcakes, pies and brownies.

It was a lot of goodies, but not a lot of stuff that's good for you. But the retired volunteers noticed a distinct change in the types of food they were collecting about five months ago.

In addition to the 125 pounds of bread from Target or Hy-Vee, they started picking up more perishable foods, like fruits and vegetables. On Thursday, for example, they picked up 315 pounds of bananas and fruit from the Hy-Vee at Crossroads and another few hundred pounds of mixed fruit from the Hy-Vee at College Square.

"We joke that they eat better than we do," Frost said.

What prompted the change? Turns out it was simply education. In the last five months, Stephanie Fowler, resource developer at the food bank, said she's been talking to area stores about the kinds of goods the food bank can collect on its daily pick-ups.

"A lot of times it's just getting the awareness out there of what we can take," she said. "The number one question I get is, 'Do you have enough storage space (for refrigerated goods)?'"

The answer is yes, and the result is about 17,000 pounds in perishable food pick-ups per month -- about double the amount from five months ago. Fowler expects that number to increase as more stores, like gas stations, join in.

She has also organized a food council so she can stay in regular contact with the food bank's clients and keep the partnership strong.

"(I've learned) what makes them want to donate. I used to think it was mostly the tax write-off. It's not -- it's mostly the (public relations)," she said.

Bud Dell, a retired volunteer who has played a role in getting Hy-Vee stores to donate the food, said the key to keeping donations strong is educating people from each department, because they'll be the ones deciding what to donate and what to throw out. A lot of the food Frost and Harbaugh collected at the Crossroads Hy-Vee last week bore "sell by" dates of that day, which meant the food was still safe for several days. For Dell, the effort to donate more food is a no-brainer.

"Why are we paying to haul away food when we can give it away for free?" he said.

Stores like Starbucks and Red Lobster have also joined the mix. Last week during Frost and Harbaugh's rounds, Red Lobster donated 41 pounds of potatoes, a few pounds of snow crab legs and shrimp. The prize, though, was the 2.4 pounds of King Crab, which sells for about $15 per pound at the grocery store. All the food was cooked the night before but unsold, so it would otherwise have been thrown away.

Barb Prather, executive director of the food bank, said the best part about the increased donations is all the hard-to-get fresh produce. As it is, she said, the food bank not only has plenty of room to store the food, it can hardly keep it on the shelves.

"Usually it goes out so fast it's gone by the next morning," she said.

Contact Jens Manuel Krogstad at (319) 291-1580 or jens.krogstad@wcfcourier.com.

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Copyright (c) 2006, Waterloo-Cedar Falls Courier, Iowa

Distributed by Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News.

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Source: Waterloo Courier

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