Everything you want to know about my food bank

Here are some facts about my little food bank:

The (City of) Alameda Food Bank serves between 300-500 households a month averaging 2.5 people per household. We serve people who are primarily on fixed incomes, like disability, pensions/social security, and long term unemployment. A lot of the folks in that category are on disability, but we also serve people whose minimum-wage income primarily goes to pay the rent. 10% are seniors and 30% are families with children. While the income limit for a household of one is about $2200/month, the median income of our clients is only $850/month.

A household of two receives once a month, from our food bank, the following:
a box of cereal
two cans of fruit
two cans of vegetables
one can of soup
one can of tuna
one can of chili/corned beef hash/ravioli/spaghetti
one can of tomatoes/tomato sauce
one pound of pasta
one pound of rice
four potatoes
two apples
two oranges (soon to be two pears, as the price of oranges is about to go up sharply)
two carrots
one onion
two pounds of meat and/or fish
one jar of peanut butter
milk powder to make one quart

PLUS:
** We also include a "treat" in each box or bag that could be a package of cookies, a box of crackers, or a package of cake mix.

** People can choose from whatever fresh produce comes in, which comes from Trader Joe's and the Alameda Farmer's Market. What comes in those deliveries is totally unpredictable except that it always includes bread, egg salad, packaged salads, cooked sushi things, and flowers. Sometimes we get cheese, or a lot of eggs, or just totally random things. Starbucks sends breakfast pastries and today we got a lot of coffee from them and from Peet's.

I have a challenge for you, if you've never done this: Plan two weeks of meals with everything I've listed above. Extra points if one of your household members is under eleven years old.

If you want to know what to take to a canned food drive, canned protein is the best: Tuna, chicken, salmon, Spam. Rice, pasta, and canned or dried beans are also good choices. If you have access, and it hasn't expired, baby formula is wonderful, because of course it costs a fortune. Our food bank can also always use grocery bags.

The food bank has two paid staff and everyone else is a volunteer, some retired, some between jobs, and some with jobs that work second or third shift. Some people come to work community service hours because they are students or because they are working off traffic tickets.

It's easy to do good. Also, I receive a lot of blessings from the clients and we all can use all the blessings we can get.