Newsletter - 1-01-08

Team Effort

The message on the Food Runners line came in at 3PM on the Friday before Christmas. "Hi, this is Eve with Steam Cuisine*. We over estimated our holiday needs and we have 150 fully packaged and prepared, heat n' eat meals that we’d like to donate. The meals can be picked up tomorrow morning between 10:00-10:30. Please call me as soon as possible. I'd hate to see this food thrown away." I called Eve right back to get the time and location details for the pick up. "Um," she stammered, "since I left the message, I found out that we actually have 900 meals to donate. They come in cases of six, so that's 150 cases. Will you be able to do it?" Phew! What a fantastic donation. My heart soared with elation thinking of all the hungry folks that would get a little nutritious food in their bellies right before Christmas. My very same heart was also having palpitations over how I was going to put together such a large pick up on such short notice. The Food Runners truck was not available the next morning due to its regular, tightly scheduled Saturday pick ups and Friday afternoons are a typically difficult time reach volunteers, especially with so many leaving town for the holidays. Fortunately, Food Runners had acquired nearly 100 new volunteers since mid November due to a fantastically orchestrated publicity campaign by enterprising Food Runners founder Mary Risley. I immediately put out an emergency email with some dire title like "S.O.S.!! Fire on the Poop Deck." "Within twenty minutes, I had six eager volunteers (three newcomers and three veterans) with the six cars I figured it would take to move all the food. I sent everyone their instructions along with the appropriate amount of cases each was to pick up in order to match the number of people at the assigned delivery sites. The meals were to be distributed to six low income apartment buildings or SRO hotels, spanning from the Tenderloin to the Mission. Tenants in these buildings usually have no cooking facilities beyond microwaves and mini fridges in their rooms. My Food Runners cell phone rang at 10:05 on Saturday morning. "Hi Nancy," said Jane S., a six month veteran of "The Force". "I'm here at the corner of Steuart and Mission like you said and there are no Steam Cuisine vans anywhere. I tried calling Eve, but she's not answering. I can wait for ten minutes but then I'll have to go if they don't show up." I tried calling Eve too. No answer. Oh, great, I thought as my heart sank. Six volunteers to apologize to, six low income residences to disappoint and nine hundred nutritious meals on their way to the compost if I couldn't find a solution. Five minutes later, Jane called back. "Ok. The vans just pulled up. Another organization was parked in Steam Cuisine's regularly reserved spaces and the cops had to shoo the offenders away. I found the Steam Cuisine manager and I'm loading up right now. Merry Christmas!" Merry Christmas indeed. After the initial glitch, the pick up and delivery of the 900 meals went according to plan. Six volunteers made a difference. 900 San Francisco bellies went a little less hungry and 900 pounds of potential waste stayed out of the compost heap. And all because of a little organization That Could called, Food Runners.

Food Runners picked up and delivered 121,795 pounds of food in the month of December. Volunteers performed 734 runs and the truck did 280. Food Runners added 6 new donors, 4 new recipients and 21 new volunteers this past month. Very special thanks to Global Gourmet Catering for the nearly 2 tons of delicious food donated to Food Runners following Google’s holiday events of December 7th & 8th. Food Runners picked up and delivered an amazing 1,383,090 pounds of food in 2007. Food Runners is looking forward to bringing even more "food to the people" in 2008. The food is there. The need is there. Together with dedicated donors and caring, citizen volunteers, Food Runners joyfully continues its 20 year old mission to decrease hunger and alleviate waste in San Francisco.

Remember to spread the word to your local restaurants, grocery stores and businesses that there is no need to throw away food. A smiling.

Food Runners volunteer is just a phone call away at 415-929-1866.

Happy New Year,

Nancy

* For more information about Steam Cuisine meals, visit the following website:
http://www.pagedesigngroup.net/SteamCuisine/about.html

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