Hannah sayle
Susan Sanford, president of the Mid-South Food Bank
With the Mid-South Food Bank food drive coming up this weekend, the
arrangement atop Susan Sanford’s filing cabinet could get a little
cramped.
Sanford, president and CEO of the Mid-South Food Bank, has collected
what could be the contents of a gag gift basket, although she assures
me that each foodstuff was once a sincere food-bank donation. A can of
“Spotted Dick Pudding” with a broken seal, doggie breath mints,
candy-dispensing pigs that, ahem, excrete little chocolate pellets came
tucked among the cans of string beans and tomato soup. In her 18 years
at the Food Bank, Sanford has added this to her list of
responsibilities: plucking unusable donations from the pile and
occasionally electing interesting ones to a Donation Hall of Fame on
her filing cabinet.
What does Sanford do with the other offerings, the ones that don’t
make it to the Hall of Fame? Does she ever take them home for herself?
Sanford quickly relays her “no tolerance” policy on pilfering food from
the donation pile, rejects or no.
“I have fired an employee for taking a jar of peanut butter,” she
says. Sanford makes no apologies for taking a hard line: “This food is
for the needy.”
And there is no shortage of needy people in our city.
“From our last hunger survey,” Sanford says, “just in our emergency
agencies, 20,500 people a week relied on this food bank for their very
next meal.”
“We’re serving people for a lot of different reasons,” says Sanford,
explaining the recent upswing in demand. “Someone had a medical
emergency. They had an extra-high utility bill. They couldn’t make
their mortgage payment. About three weeks ago, two very nicely dressed
women walked in the door, and I asked if they were here to volunteer. I
made an assumption from looking at them. They said, ‘No. We’re looking
for food assistance.'”
The women were then directed to a not-for-profit agency with a
feeding program. The Food Bank does not distribute donated goods
directly to individuals in need of assistance but rather serves as a
collection and fund-raising hub for food pantries, youth programs, soup
kitchens, and shelters.
Donations collected at the Food Bank come from a variety of sources,
including community food drives, FEMA, Operation Feed (a workplace food
drive), and the local food industry. And donations aren’t just canned
foods: fresh produce, bread products, and cereals complete the
donations that lead to balanced diets. Master gardeners at Shelby Farms
donate about 8,000 pounds of fresh fruits and vegetables a year, and
individual stores donate whenever they have available produce.
One interesting source for fresh produce is the “Sow to Grow”
program at the Shelby County Correctional Center. Inmates have planted
a garden with crops that they maintain, harvest, and donate to the Food
Bank.
The majority of food still comes from the local food industry,
although advancements in canned food production have negatively
affected the scale of industry donations: Fewer mistakes at the cannery
means fewer opportunities for the Food Bank to profit from minor
imperfections.
“The national food industry will never have surpluses again like
they did when food banks were founded,” Sanford says. “There are just
not as many mistakes, overruns, label changes — all the things
that we used to thrive on. So we depend more and more on our
community.”
The food drive, from September 11th to September 13th, is one of
many such calls for community help. While the Donation Hall of Fame is
a charming homage to quirkiness, you should save your doggie breath
mints and opt for high-protein foods, such as canned meats and peanut
butter, which are always in short supply.
We know hunger exists in our city, but every once in a while we need
to be reminded. September is Hunger Action Month. Here’s your reminder,
Memphis: “Give a Little, Feed a Lot.” On September 11th, look for a
truck in Poplar Plaza in front of Kroger, and bring your cans to help
the Food Bank volunteers stock it. Throughout the weekend of September,
many local restaurants will be asking for canned food or monetary
donations in honor of Hunger Action Month. A list of participating
restaurants will be posted at midsouthfoodbank.org. Questions?
Contact David Stephens at dstephens@midsouthfoodbank.org.
