Getting Ready for Saturday -- Part Two

REBECCA FELDBUSH

MANY HANDS

Checking Everything for Quality

“I think that every morning I’ve been here, there has never been a morning when there were no donations from the community,” said Kim Kordalski, assistant manager of the Pantry. “We have a chest outside our door that is always stuffed with food. Sorting all those donations is how we start our day.”

Donations from our drivers continue to arrive throughout the morning, keeping Kordalski and many other hands busy for hours. Every item is checked for quality, including its date, in keeping with U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) food-safety guidelines.

The USDA’s “Best if Used By/Before” date is used by retailers to indicate when a product will be at its best flavor or quality. It is not a safety date. For example, according to the USDA, foods such as “canned fruit, vegetables, beans, packaged pasta, and rice” may remain safe for up to two years beyond the date shown, when properly stored.

“We ensure that there are no dents in the seams of nonperishables, that the product has not been opened, and so on,” said Kordalski. “Essentially, if you don’t want it in your pantry, don’t put it on our shelves.”

“Every carton of eggs is checked, too,” she said. “Broken eggs are tossed, and good eggs are repacked into clean cartons.

“And when we sort the produce for quality, every single fruit or vegetable gets checked.”

Sorting donations of produce on the porch

Kordalski, who is also the manager of USDA foods, said Feeding Tampa Bay delivers an allocation of USDA foods to the Pantry every week. This usually consists of two pallets of non-perishable foods, one pallet of produce and, one to two times a month, meat products. These items are marked with the date they are received and must be distributed within 60 days.

After the non-perishable foods have been checked for safety, they are placed in the appropriate bins — fruits, vegetables, pasta, tomato sauce, baked goods and so on — for Saturday’s distribution. On Saturday, other volunteers come in to pack one of each item into a box for Pantry clients.

“After we sort the produce, dairy and breads on Tuesday morning, we often have some foods that won’t keep until our distribution day on Saturday,” Kordalski said. “We then ask one of our drivers to take the food to Beth-El Farmworker Ministry, a few miles south on U.S. 301. Their distribution day is Wednesday.

“This is a full-circle kind of thing,” said Kordalski. “Nothing is wasted.”

Meanwhile, in other areas of the Pantry, other helpers are busy with one task or another. There is always much more to be done.

Because bread is often donated in large quantities, we repackage everything into family-size portions to ensure that each client gets at least some bread.

We divide 25-pound bags of rice into family-size portions. We prepare client-size bags of breakfast bars and treats. We make sure hundreds of banana boxes are ready to be filled with food for Saturday morning. We also begin filling a couple dozen boxes with non-perishable foods so everything is ready when we open early Saturday morning for our clients—many of whom have been waiting for hours.

We take out the trash

Importantly, we offer hope and peace to our clients, despite whatever hardships they may be enduring.

One mom shared: “I worried about having enough food because money is short and food prices are higher. The food from Our Lady’s Pantry helps me put more nutritious meals on my table — more than you will ever know.”

Our Lady’s Pantry is a cocoon of caring and action, where men and women of all ages come together several mornings a week simply to make a difference.

“If you would like to join our Pantry family, please stop by any weekday morning (except Thursday) and ask for me or Tom,” said Kordalski. “We are in the classroom building on the far right-hand corner of the Our Lady of Guadalupe Mission Campus, across the road from Aldi on U.S. 301 South. We look forward to meeting you one day.”

To continue reading “Getting Ready for Saturday — Part One,” go to:
Getting Ready for Saturday — Part One