If someone came and stole it all our parent entity would likely tell us we can no longer keep the door open to allow a breeze to come through the building. Or they would install metal bars on the doors.

I am in contact with someone now that may be facilitating something along these lines. Not to the extent with which you propose, but I am working on something.

I will get right on that! Thank you for letting me know something out of our hands is a problem and something we need to fix with no resources, only volunteers.

I have gotten used to using the state abbreviation for New Mexico because a lot of people in the states see the “Mexico” and assume it is not a state. But they see NM and know that is a state. I forget that outside of the US people generally know our states better. Hell even our president does not realize we are a state.

Less than a block from the food bank is an old motel that has been turned into apartments. But they have no kitchens. The place is so old most of the rooms do not have microwaves. A lot of our “customers” live there.

I worked in the movie industry for a couple years, and I lived in motel rooms with microwaves. I hardly cooked anything because it was a pain in the ass.

I said they did not want it in large quantities. Most of the people who come through the bank are conscious of other’s and know they do not have the time or means to deal with all of the extra fresh produce while working multiple jobs, or some live in a motel room with only a microwave. So they do not take something that maybe someone else could use. We did have some people taking cases. But not everyone can deal with that.

Everyone was given, I think, 4 heads of cauliflower and a dozen tomatoes in their cart. Very few did not take them. They were also offered a case of veggies. Which most declined. Hell I did not even take a full case myself because I know I did not have time to process it.

We are trying to find one place that will consistently take our spoilage.

We get a lot of expired stuff from Walmart and the grocery store in town. But Walmart takes forever to get it to us. Usually when we get it, it is a week expired. Where the grocery store we get it a day or two before it actually expires.

Last year our bank’s ability to place orders was taken away from us. Now we get what we get.

Before that happened we did not have issues like this every delivery. The previous delivery we received frozen falafel in wraps, but so many that all of our freezers were full of it. Volunteers were taking it home by the case. We turned away multiple pallets of the stuff because we were out of room. My chest freezer is so full of them I have a 50 pound bag of rice sitting on top to make sure it stays closed.

We also went from not having milk for months, to having no room to place it all.

Not everyone who comes through the food bank is homeless.

This is what we have been telling the company that sends us food, stop sending huge shipments of fresh produce.

North side of Main Street

Messaged you

The ones I took home on Wednesday were moldy and a mess Friday evening when I got home from work.

In general the company who funds us. They also facilitate the government goods. I only volunteer and perform my duty handing out goods. I am not privy to anything else other than what the woman who runs it vents to me. Other than my parents, I am the longest serving volunteer and I know the distribution system of our goods very well, so she vents a lot of her frustrations to me.

We have already stopped getting any government commodities. We used to always have some kind of nut and dried fruit, for two years that I have been volunteering we always had those two things, since February we have not had either. We do not even have government cheese any longer.

The other obstacle is volunteer hours, as I mentioned in another reply, there is only so much we can do. Many of the volunteers are only there to get some extra food, others for community service (as required by a judge in restitution for a crime), others as required by their church. Most are ONLY there for the volunteer hours and do not care about anything other than getting their hours. They will not go beyond their basic duties.

There are weeks we barely have enough people to keep the doors open to give out food. I am no longer in a position to volunteer whenever they need me.

Trying to get it to animal farmers.

Because of bureaucracy we have to request this. If it is found out we are giving away the food to unapproved recipients we can lose all of our funding. If we give to unapproved recipients and they in turn give us prepared food to give out, that is okay.

Word got out that we were loading up my pickup with food and taking it to the homeless camps. I did get a number of them to start coming to the bank to get food. But it was easier when I could take stuff to them.

The tomatoes I took home Wednesday were moldy and unusable by Friday. I had planned to cook them Sunday morning.

The woman who runs the bank has been posting on Facebook. We have to be careful because we can lose our funding if it is discovered we give food to anyone And not only those in our system approved to get food.