Tag food security

September Numbers and Looking Ahead

By in Auburn Hunger Task Force, Reports Tag , , , , , ,

September was a whirlwind of a month. Summer is gone and Autumn has arrived. We had 5 Wednesdays to serve meals. We served a total of 771 meals. During those meal services we served 92 people who had never received a free meal in a meal distribution line in Auburn before. That is a lot of new people because they are coming back each week. Our numbers are jumping higher and higher and as I speak to other coordinators of free meal distribution, they are saying the same thing.

It is hard to provide more food than we already are right now. We have ovens and stoves on backorder and have no idea when they might arrive. We are cooking with 18 qt crockpot cookers and commercial size rice cookers. It works but the process is labor intensive. We come in the night before for meal preparation to slice and dice and sometimes cook parts, or even, the complete meal. On the morning of the meal, we put everything together, cook or reheat, package, and deliver in thermal bags to the meal distribution site.

What is to come? Starting next week, we will be preparing the food for SS Peter & John’s on Tuesdays. We will provide the food. They will cook or reheat, package, and distribute at their location. This will be a great partnership as it will give their volunteers a little bit of a break because they will not have to provide, prepare, and cook a whole meal. Starting next week look for us to be showing SS Peter & John’s Tuesday meal on our social media because we will be providing the food.

One of the most important things is that the organizations who provide free food to people in the city work together. We help each other when one is lacking in a specific resource. One organization cannot do this alone. Communicating needs helps us to help each other. More of this to come. Food security depends on it. That means lives depend on it.

How We Get Our Recipes

By in Auburn Hunger Task Force, Recipes Tag , , , , , , ,

Food and dining with dignity is in our mission. We cook and prepare food for our patrons as if we were preparing the food for our own families, for our best friends, for our employers. We believe our patrons deserve the work, creativity and patience put into any other meal we would serve to anyone else. We refuse to put anything on a plate just because we have the ingredients. We look at our ingredients and then think about what we can add to make a dish special. Sometimes we look at the ingredients and say, “we refuse to make the same old dish, what can we make instead?” We also pay attention to the feedback our patrons give us on certain dishes. If there is great feedback on a certain dish, be prepared to see it again in the future. If there is a certain amount of negative feedback, we will scrap that recipe. The steps in creating a recipe or obtaining a recipe for a meal distribution contain a few steps including surveying ingredients, finding recipes, adjusting recipes, and finally, getting creative with recipes!

We must look at our ingredients on hand. As we look at the ingredients we have on hand, we get an idea of the types of meals we can serve for the week. We obtain these ingredients through donations, grants, low cost or free from the Food Bank, or purchasing from other vendors. We try to rotate proteins we use each week so that we do not serve the same protein too many times in a row. So far, we have been able to do this with success.

The second step is to think of a dish or find a recipe that contains those ingredients.  Sometimes a dish will easily pop into mind, other times one of us will do a Google search. I have found that the Google search, “Simple upscale recipe for large event” will do. I then find a recipe that contains the ingredients at hand and then go purchase the remaining ingredients. Yes, sometimes it is just that easy, but other times it is not.

Sometimes we must get creative with a recipe. We get a lot of donated produce. It’s healthy, fresh and tastes great. We will put it in sauces, meats, salads or whatever and wherever we can. We hate to see food get wasted, especially fresh produce. Sometimes the creativity is necessary to make a plain meal a more upscale meal. An example of this is going from chicken salad to curried chicken salad with grapes and walnuts or pecans.

The most fun part, note sarcasm, is converting a recipe intended to serve 4-8 to a recipe to serve 150-160. It is not just a matter of just doing some multiplication. It is also a matter of conversion. Teaspoons are converted to cups and cups are converted to quarts or gallons. Free internet tools are a wonderful thing, but this all still takes a lot of time.

When the Auburn Hunger Task Force, Inc. dedicated itself to providing meals with dignity to patrons we dedicated ourselves to working hard for the patrons of the meal distributions. The patrons receive the same food we would serve to anyone else in our lives because they deserve it!

A New Model: Meal Distribution

By in Auburn Hunger Task Force, Reports Tag , , , , , , , , , ,

So much has happened since we have reopened the doors to the Auburn Hunger Task Force, Inc and we want to let you know about it. First of all, we have to ease back into things, so right now, we are only serving on Wednesdays. We are looking forward to adding a day in the near future. We had our first service was on July 28th since closing our doors in the beginning of June. That meal service and through the month of August we were able to distribute 608 meals throughout the city of Auburn, NY.

Also, we have restructured so patrons do not have to come our kitchen. We deliver to several meal distribution drop points throughout the city. On Wednesdays we deliver and distribute meals at 11:30am in the community room at Brogan Manor located at 37 Olympia Ave. and at 12:00pm we deliver and distribute meals at the office in Melone Village located at 7 Merriman St. Patrons do not have to be a resident of the apartment complexes to come pick up one or more of our scrumptious homemade meals. As we add days to our schedule, we will be adding meal distribution locations to advance food security within the city limits of Auburn, NY. If your organization is interested in partnering with the Auburn Hunger Task Force, Inc. to become a meal distribution site, fill out the contact us form on this site or email us at info@auburnhtf.org for more information.

We choose to use fresh, healthy and delicious ingredients in our meals. We believe that everyone deserves to dine with dignity and that means appetizing and enjoyable food for all. Look for us to start posting our mouthwatering recipes. Of course we will scale the recipe back down to serve 4-6 rather than the 160 we serve weekly now. Please check out our Instagram or Facebook page and follow us to see weekly pictures of our food and stay updated! Both are @Auburnhtf.

As always, to expand we need volunteers. The only way we make this happen is with the power of compassionate humans who care about food security and dignity for all people. If you would like to volunteer, fill out our contact us form or email at info@auburnhtf.org. Until next time!

5000

By in Auburn Hunger Task Force Tag , , ,

Tomorrow is a very special day. It is a milestone for our organization. Unless our numbers change drastically, we will serve our 5,000th meal! We could not have done this without the support from YOU! This community of people has surrounded us and lifted us up to ensure we succeeded in these tumultuous times. For this we thank you. Please take a moment and celebrate this amazing milestone with us.

OPEN

By in Auburn Hunger Task Force Tag , , , , ,
The kitchen is open!

We are located in Auburn, NY and are open on Mondays and Tuesdays from noon – 1pm to give out nutritious and delicious meals to the public. If you are in need of a meal come to the parking lot of the SK Post at 168 State St. Enter the parking lot on Seymour St. where the army tank is located. Meals are always free and anyone is welcome.

Due to COVID-19 there are many precautions. We are only serving meals packed to go at this time. We do not know when this will change.

We have been able to serve 4,353 meals to people so far this year. This number will only rise exponentially because we will be adding more programs to our organization. Be on the lookout for news about our upcoming program Soup Wheels!

As always we appreciate the support we have received from the community. It is because of your support that we are able to provide this service to the community. Food security is possible one meal at a time.