Driving Duo

By: Elizabeth Stahl, Communication Intern Every day brings something new and exciting at the Food Shuttle, especially today! My Friday Full of Fun adventures continue this week with a peak into a volunteer driving duo!  Everyone in the warehouse was busy working to load the trucks and prepare for pick-ups when I walked through the warehouse doors at 7:45 this morning!  Fortunately, I was able to speak with two  drivers before they went on their food recovery route.  Daphne Jones has been an Inter-Faith Food Shuttle driver since October of 2009 and Jerry Boxser has been with us for three years.  They are both dedicated volunteers for the Food Shuttle!

Why did you begin volunteering at Inter-Faith Food Shuttle?

Daphne:  “I wanted to do something that was active”

Jerry: “I wanted to do something as far as helping others”

Tell me about your route today.

Daphne: “We always do the North route- we pick up and do not drop off anything.”

Jerry: “We pick up fresh fruits or prepared foods at grocery stores and a couple of restaurants”

Jerry preparing for pick-up

What is your favorite part about fighting hunger?

Daphne: “ I like the fact that the food is perishable- if you didn’t have the Food Shuttle it would all just go bad and I love how many programs IFFS has.”

Jerry: “Redistributing food to the needy rather than throwing it away- it’s just so much better.”

What is one thing you wished more people did?

Jerry: “I guess if you cannot volunteer people should at least donate- the Food Shuttle can always use funds or canned goods…”

Daphne and Jerry had to quickly depart and begin their morning truck route, but many thanks to them for spending time with me!

To the BEET of a different drum

Today's Ripe Recipe takes a unique approach to cooking home-grown beets. Tonya Post, our Director of Programs, recommended this pasta/beet combo from her expansive repertoire of recipes. So, harvest some beets from your garden and dish up this ripe recipe for dinner tonight!

Beet Pasta

Serves 6

• 2 pounds small red or golden beets, scrubbed well
• 1 clove garlic, minced
• 1/4 cup fresh orange juice
• 2 tablespoons olive oil
• 1/2 teaspoon ground coriander
• Coarse salt and ground pepper
• 1 pound whole wheat spaghetti or other short tubular pasta
• 6 ounces blue cheese or feta, crumbled (1 cup)

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Place beets in a 9-by-13-inch baking dish; add 1/2 cup water. Seal dish tightly with foil. Bake beets until tender when pierced with the tip of a sharp paring knife, 45 minutes to 1 hour. Let cool 10 minutes. Using a paper towel, rub off skins. Slice beets into wedges.
2. In a large bowl, toss beets with garlic, orange juice, oil, and coriander; season with salt and pepper.
3. Cook pasta in a large pot of boiling salted water until al dente, according to package instructions. Drain pasta, reserving 1 cup of cooking water. Return the pasta to the pot; toss with half of the blue cheese and enough reserved pasta water to coat pasta. Season with salt and pepper.
4. Divide the pasta mixture among plates; top with beets and remaining blue cheese. Serve immediately.

Did you try this beet pasta recipe? Let us know what you think by leaving a comment!

Crew Call 7/13-7/19

Inter-Faith Food Shuttle Farm and Garden

Crew-Call July 13-

We’re in the midst of the summer harvest and bringing truckloads of produce every week! Squash, zucchini, cucumbers, eggplant, tomatoes and okra are ripe for the pickin’! So c’mon out to the farm during the week to help us harvest. We’ll also be doing some general farm maintenance and need help tidying up the greenhouse. Please make sure to email Sun if you are coming out to help (9-1p and again from 4:30-6, sometimes until 8p). Whether you’re helping at the farm or in the community gardens, please make sure to bring a bottle of water, sunscreen, bug spray and even a granola bar or light snack to help keep you going!

VOLUNTEER TIMES & EVENTS:

• Farm, Work day, Saturday between 9a-2p (4505 Tryon Road)
  • We need 10 volunteers that can each commit 2-3 hours this Saturday!
  • Reserve your spot with Sun (sun@foodshuttle.org) so he knows you’re coming out to help!

NEW DIRECTIONS! No, the farm hasn’t changed location, we’re just asking that all volunteers park at 4505 Tryon Road, where the IFFS Farm sign is now set. Once you park your car, walk across the field towards the greenhouse; Sun and Steven will be in that general area.

• Community Gardens Work times:

Neighbor 2 Neighbor                    Tuesday               4-5:00pm

Mayview                                            Wednesday       4-5:00pm

Alliance Medical Ministry           Thursday             4-5:00pm

• We really need help watering the gardens! If you can volunteer on a different day or time, please email Amanda.
• We need 3 volunteers for each work day- email Amanda (Amanda@foodshuttle.org) if you can help.
• Garden Addresses/Directions: Neighbor to Neighbor is at 1200 S Blount Street; 1 story brick building on right with long chain link fence.  The Mayview garden site is located down the grassy hill behind the duplex at 2136 Mayview Rd (backing up to the Jaycee field). Alliance Medical Ministry is located at the corner of New Bern Ave. and Donald Ross Dr. at 101 Donald Ross.

• Irvin Learning Farm, 9a-12p (2912B Jones Ferry Road, Chapel Hill)
  • The Food Shuttle and Triangle Land Conservancy are starting a new teaching farm at TLC's Irvin Learning Farm outside of Carrboro on Jones Ferry Rd. and we need your help! We’re installing 1/2 acre of vegetables on new land at Irvin Hill and plan to expand this teaching operation to include vegetable production, permaculture and rotation grazing for small farm animal production. Regular volunteer times are available on Friday and Saturday mornings from 9a-12p. If you live near Chapel Hill this is a great opportunity to help start a teaching farm from the ground up.  Please email Sun (sun@foodshuttle.org) if you are able to help.

Directions From Chapel Hill: Go west on NC 54 Bypass and take the Jones Ferry Road exit. Turn left onto Jones Ferry Road and follow 3.6 miles to the Irvin Learning Farm sign on the left. Follow the signs indicating the gravel driveway on the left.  Go past the barns and house, take the next dirt path on the left. The garden is down the hill.

• PAR (Plant a Row for the Hungry) – sign up to become a member or drop off site!
  • The IFFS PAR program encourages people to grow extra and/or donate excess produce to people in need through IFFS.  We will have weekly PAR produce drop-off sites at locations around our 7 county service area, including at Logan's Trading Company.
  • If you are interested in becoming a member (donating produce from your own harvest) or know of a farmers market or store that might be interested in becoming a PAR drop-off site please contact Don at don@foodshuttle.org.

GARDEN SUPPLIES:

We are still in need of hand-tool donations.  We gladly accept new and/or lightly used equipment. Thanks to all who have responded.

New Volunteer?

If you have not filled out a volunteer form or have a friend who is interested in helping out please email Janet at (rgsjrs@aol.com)

See you at the farm or gardens!

Sun, Amanda, Steven, Elizabeth & Katherine

Friday Farm Fotos

This week's photo is from the Food Shuttle's Community Garden at Alliance Medical Ministry. Belinda Chiu spends the morning weeding and watering the pepper row at our newest community garden in Raleigh.

Do you have a green thumb and a desire to help your community? Join Belinda and the Farms and Gardens crew- volunteer to grow local nutritious produce for the hungry! Email Amanda@foodshuttle.org to get involved.

Food Sourcing with the Food Dude!

By: Elizabeth Stahl, Communications Intern

This week for Friday Full of Fun,  I ran into Don and learned more about food recovery! Don Eli, better known as the “Food Dude,” is the Director of Food Sourcing for the Inter-Faith Food Shuttle.  In charge of finding companies and organizations that will donate food to the Food Shuttle, Don keeps busy.  Food recovery is how we began in 1989, and it's still an integral part of how we drive hunger from the community! I got to speak with the Food Dude briefly and asked him about his experiences.

Tell me a little about what you do.

I am in charge of food sourcing. I find donated food, food that our agencies need.  We don’t really purchase, but instead I find companies that will donate.

What are some examples of these food donors?

The Farmer’s Market wholesalers, farmers that have permits to sell at the Farmer’s Market, grocery stores, and retail stores like Wal-Mart and Target.

IFFS recently reached 3 million pounds of recovered food…could you tell us about that?

We started Wal-Mart last year and they are becoming more efficient in what they donate, there are fourteen stores now donating and also the Farmer’s Market has picked up during this growing season.

Can you tell us about the UPS Systems in our distribution trucks?

I was trained by Feeding America with the UPS System.  It’s a transportation logistics program that tells us how we should do our routes more efficiently.

Is food recovery different in the summer time?

Food safety is a bigger challenge because of the heat with perishable food.  We try to start early and are more selective with where we send the distribution trucks."

What is your favorite part about fighting hunger?

The satisfaction of knowing that the good food that comes in through donating will be helping people become food secure.

What is one thing you wished more people did?

I wish more people would understand the significance of nonprofits in our society.

Anything else?

Even though what we do is serious and we deal with depressing situations with people and society, we still have a lot of fun doing our job!

The Food Dude and the relationships he has made with our food donors keeps millions of pounds of food from landfills each year.  He plays a vital role at the Inter-Faith Food Shuttle! Thanks, Food Dude.

A banana is neither a Taki nor a fruit

By: Belinda Chiu, guest blogger

Unlike many of the amazing volunteer chefs at Operation FrontLine, I am not a trained chef. I am not a professional cook. But I love to cook, love to eat, and love raising awareness about healthy eating and cooking with children. So two months ago, I found myself being the Volunteer Chef for a Kids Up Front class at Forest View Elementary School.

For six weeks, I worked with an incredible team, including the nutritionist Jennifer Hale who is expecting her own little “kid up front” any day now. I was so impressed not only with the expertise of my fellow instructors, but also how thoughtful and committed they were. With a natural ability to connect with our students, Jennifer made the complicated nutritional pyramid fun and understandable.

Of course, without the students, there would be no OFL. We started out with 8 girls and 2 boys and mid-point, it was just the ladies remaining due to scheduling conflicts. Nonetheless, the all-female class forged ahead.

The students were all fourth graders, and some of the brightest, sweetest, spunkiest young ladies I have met. They were all deeply engaged and curious and wanted to learn. Many were gourmands-in the-making, already sous chefs at home with sophisticated palates.

One interesting foodstuff they all seem to have a taste for are Takis. Call me old or ignorant, but I had no ideas what Takis are. I finally gathered that these were spicy corn chips made up of who knows what. Coming from the perspective on encouraging healthy, whole, local, fresh foods…Takis hasn’t quite entered into my pantry. But these students sure loved them.

So how to get young people away from the addictive taste of additive-filled “corn chips” to fresh fruits and vegetables as snacks? Make them cook!

Week by week, we followed this wonderful curriculum and learned about the major food groups. We made black bean tacos and pretzels-from-scratch and vegetable soup. Yes, VEGETABLE soup. Despite initial complaints about those greens, wouldn’t you know it - the vegetable soup they made? They ate every last drop.

How did that happen?

Well, these young women learned some critical knife skills (“the claw!”), how to chop, how to read recipes. They learned how to say different foods in five languages: apple (English), manzana (Spanish), apfel (German), pomme (French), ping guo (Cantonese). They learned how to multiple by doubling recipes and how to improvise when we messed up – which we did several times.

They become in charge of their own learning and their own health – and they dared to try all sorts of new foods. They learned how their foods is tied to their health (this class, for some reason, was obsessed with Vitamin D and where and how to get it. I have no idea why).

And by Week Five, when we asked them what they had for snacks, all the girls named some kind of fruit. Including bananas, which I learned along with my students, is NOT technically a fruit. A banana is an herb! Fruit or herb, these young culinary artists took ownership of their learning, taught me that I still have much to learn, and are proof that learning happens everywhere and that learning can be – and should be – fun.

Takis was mentioned by no one.

Overseeing the Warehouse with Dennis!

By Elizabeth Stahl, Communication Intern From the farm to nutrition,  Elizabeth's Friday Full Of Fun continues at the Inter-Faith Food Shuttle warehouse this week!

Life in the warehouse for Dennis Wooten is non-stop!  Being the warehouse manager for Inter-Faith Food Shuttle is no easy task.  Overseeing every aspect of food intake and food distribution, Dennis also supervises volunteers and truck maintenance.  I was privileged to catch him during a few moments of down time to ask him a few questions.

What is your favorite part about fighting hunger?

I never knew anything about fighting hunger until I started working here.  When I found out about it, I fell in love-deeply in love.  I wake up every morning for this.”

Tell me about what you do here at the Food Shuttle:

“My job is to oversee the food that comes in and the food that goes out.  I am in charge of routing the truck drivers, overseeing community service and volunteers, making sure they are happy- and I do truck maintenance whether cleaning the coolers or cleaning the insides.”

What is a typical day like for you, Dennis?

“The first thing I do every day is to check the route sheets and the volunteer sheets so I know how to start my day and to get the trucks on the road then I go from there.”

What is one thing you wished more people did?

I wish more people would volunteer more and give back more.  Just join in, hold hands, and help everyone that needs help.  Each dollar or each volunteer helps in some way.  One bag of rice will feed an entire family; I wish more people would help.”

What is your guilty pleasure food?

“I eat a banana every day!”

How many volunteers would you say you work with each week?

“I would say about 300 or so per week, about 40 drivers and the rest volunteer around the warehouse.”

How did you get started with Inter-Faith Food Shuttle?

“A friend of mine told me about driving trucks for the Food Shuttle, so I came down here for an interview and got the job.  I drove trucks for three years before I became the warehouse manager- I learned Inter-Faith Food Shuttle inside and out.”

What else do you have to say about Inter-Faith Food Shuttle?

”We are a non-profit.  Me, myself, being a manger, I cannot do this job without my volunteers. I cannot do it without the unpaid truck drivers that volunteer here.  We have a wonderful family here at Inter-Faith Food Shuttle.”

Dennis and the Food Dude

Dennis works hard to fight hunger and the ensure that people in need around our community receive food.  We could all learn something from not only Dennis himself, but more so his heart- his dedication and compassion are endless.

If you are interested in volunteering with Dennis whether driving trucks, packing grocery bags, or working around the warehouse, please email emily@foodshuttle.org!  Your help, as always, is greatly appreciated!

Friday Farm Fotos!

Despite the nonstop heat this week in Raleigh, several large groups have been volunteering at the Farm!

Teens and adults from all over the country spent time weeding,

mulching,

and harvesting vegetables. We even met a lady from Pennsylvania who had never tried okra!

A special thank to the groups from Lott Carey, Youth Works and Haven House we're so grateful for your hard work this week!

Because of our volunteers, we can grow nutritious food on the Farm and harvest it to feed hungry people in our community.

Join our Farm volunteers next week- the veggies are coming in! Sun and Steven would appreciate extra hands to harvest the fresh produce.

Meet a Hunger Fighter- Stephani Hutchinson!

Busy dicing onions at a different volunteer organization, Stephani still had time to pick-up her phone and answer a few questions for us about her volunteer time at the Food Shuttle! Our dedicated volunteers are always willing to offer a helping hand no matter where they are. Read below to learn about Stephani's volunteer work at the Food Shuttle: Who: Stephani Hutchinson

What: food rescue driver for Inter-Faith Food Shuttle- goes out on routes to 10 different markets and distributes food to 3 different low-income housing sites in North Raleigh

When: every Tuesday and Thursday

How long she has been a hunger fighter:  4 years!

Why:  She learned about Inter-Faith Food Shuttle in the newspaper. Since she was recently retired, she wanted to help!

I love [fighting hunger].  Feeding people is a way to help in the community.  I feel very fortunate to work with people at IFFS; everyone is wonderful!”

A special thanks to Stephani for driving hunger from the community every week! Our volunteers keep the Food Shuttle truckin'- sign up to become a volunteer like Stephani by clicking here.

Funding from the City of Raleigh is restored to $100,000!

We received wonderful news today that the Raleigh City Council restored funding for Inter-Faith Food Shuttle to the original $100,000! On behalf of the Inter-Faith Food Shuttle, THANK YOU to everyone who wrote emails, made phone calls, and attended the Raleigh City Council meeting last month in support of our efforts to drive hunger from the community. We could not have done it without you! As a result, we are able to fight hunger as we have in the past year.

Thank you for rallying around the Food Shuttle!