Abagful of donated food: One family fills it up, another family heats it up.
Only it’s not quite that simple.
This month has featured some significant local campaigns in the fight against hunger, with food drives around Clark County.
In addition to all the other groceries, the North County Community Food Bank gathered more than 23,000 cans of food — much of it from Battle Ground schools.
For those of us who’ve wondered how food banks deal with things like pull dates and crunched containers, School Board member and food bank president John Idsinga provided an inside look at just what sort of tin cans can go into a Christmas basket.
Every can was inspected, said Idsinga. “Every can is checked for date, for rust, for dents, for anything that is swollen.”
And even some of the cans that get set aside do go onto the shelves, he said.
“If it was just dropped on ground, we’ll give it out,” he said. If a can isn’t too far past its pull date, “We take it to the food bank and put it on a shelf that says ‘out of date.’ If someone brings that can to the counter, it is checked again to make sure nothing is wrong.”
The rejects went into a 32-gallon trash barrel that was filled 1½ times. By Idsinga’s calculation, 99 percent of the donated soup, chili, vegetables and other canned goods passed muster.
The percentage of “keeper” food was even higher for packaged items like cereal, pasta, ramen and boxed meals.
However, that category of dry packaged food did include the oldest donation they’ve collected recently. It was a box of Betty Crocker angel food cake mix, with a 1987 “use by” date.
911 & Knock
The Walk & Knock food drive this month included one pickup that involved more than a bagful of groceries.
One of the coordinators for Clark County’s biggest food drive said her mother had set out a contribution on the morning of Dec. 4. It was still sitting there that afternoon.
Then, the woman had a medical problem. Emergency medical personnel from Fire District 6 responded to the 911 call. As they helped the woman — her daughter said she’s fine now, by the way — they also noticed that her bag of donated food was still sitting there.
They picked it up and took it to the Fire District 6 station in Hazel Dell, which happened to be the Walk & Knock’s busiest collection point this year.
Off Beat lets members of The Columbian news team step back from our newspaper beats to write the story behind the story, fill in the story or just tell a story.
