During the noon hour Thursday I took a tour of the Second Harvest facilities located in the Airpark just off Haines Road near the airport. Though I'd been previously familiar with Second Harvest, having written about their annual Hungry Bowl fund raising events many of the past several years, I had no idea how extensive was their reach, nor how significant their impact.
I remember years ago reading an article about how a shipment of more than 100 million dollars worth of food was delivered to Detroit to address nourishment needs there, but that because there were no mechanisms for distribution it spoiled before helping any humans.
By way of contrast, it's impressive to see the systems Second Harvest has created and established. There seem to be two missions operating in tandem. First, the obvious one, bringing food to hungry and needy people. The less obvious one, which you would learn about on the tour, is its Rescue Mission. Or rather, Food Rescue, doing whatever they can to keep good food from ending up in landfills so that it ends up in peoples' stomachs.
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| The tour is an educational experience that is given quarterly. |
After writing about the programs taking place at Damiano Center earlier this year I was put in touch with Shaye Moris, executive director of Second Harvest. I love their slogan:
Fighting Hunger / Feeding Hope. Shaye suggested that I attend one of their quarterly tours, which I was eager to do.
There were about a half dozen of us on yesterday's tour, including two people from Life House, someone from Whole Foods Co-op and a fellow from Anchor Point Church. We were also joined by a couple of folks from the Northern Harvest team. Ms. Moris led the tour, which began with the first "Aha!" moment. 2nd Harvest is not a food shelf. It is a Food Bank. It is the largest, and only, food bank in the region. Second Harvest belongs to a network of 200 other food banks in the U.S. designed to efficiently acquire and distribute food to eliminate hunger.
One facet of their labors could be compared to a rescue mission, rescuing food from retail partners so it isn't wasted. Did you know that 27% of the food in this country gets thrown away? And sometimes it's as high as 40%.
Managing food is 80% of the work of the Food Bank, distributing it to 180 different food programs, soup kitchens, food shelves and other programs. It's a massive undertaking and real needs are being met every day.
Another "Aha" was learning how vital it is to stay in touch with government regulations and the stringent health standards set by the USDA, OSHA, etc. There are baking audits, label requirements and other legal matters that the 17 staff embers of Second Harvest must stay current on.
Another insight was learning how important volunteers are to Second Harvest. If you want to become a volunteer for a cause that is making a real difference, you might want to
visit their website and learn how. Volunteers provided 15,000 hours of service last year, which made a tangible difference in fulfilling their aims, which include nutrition assistance programs for seniors (
NAPS), for kids (
BackPack Program), the
Mobile Food Pantry and for the region's food shelves.
For the record, Second Harvest does have a Food Shelf here at the Airpark, open on Tuesdays, but the facility's primary function is being a Food Bank and Food Rescue operation. (25 volunteers help operate the food shelf there on Tuesdays.)
It's interesting how much thought has gone into every aspect of the operation. For example, it used to be that each of the various organizations that fed the poor (CHUM and Damiano Center, for example) would call on stores and restaurants to acquire goods before they were thrown. The result was a lot of inefficiency as multiple places were calling around, and lots of time consumption would be the result. Second Harvest, therefore, became a middleman, a food broker of sorts, so that a grocery store doesn't have to field 21 calls a week. Instead, it's one call that takes care of all.
Food distribution is an expensive part of feeding people in all countries, and in this case Halvor Lines has been helping
mucho by providing $25,000 a year of donated transportation. Second Harvest services an 18,000 mile region from Hurley to Ely and points west, picking up or delivering food, so this kind of generous help is really appreciated here.
Our tour took us through the freezer (ten below) and the refrigerated room as well as 24,000 square feet of storage. Some of the sources for all this food include the hospitals, universities, grocery stores and more. Some food is picked up and delivered straight off the truck.
There are no federal, state or local government funds being used here. 100% of the operation is funded by donations, hence a big piece of the work involves fund-raising since the overhead for all this is 1.9 million dollars per year.
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Second Harvest Northern Lakes Food Bank is a 501(C)3 charitable non-profit and is the largest hunger-relief organization in the Northland. Each year we rescue and distribute over 5.8 million pounds of nutritious food, enough food for 4.7 million meals, to approximately 44,000 people in need.
Special thanks to Shaye Morris, Erin Makela and all the Second Harvest staff who helped get us more informed and for making time to share their passion with the wider public.
If you want to Rescue Food and Feed Families, or simply learn more, visit https://northernlakesfoodbank.org/
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