The Community Center of St. Bernard

Today, I worked at the Community Center of St. Bernard. People started signing in for free food at 10, and the distribution began at 11. Food is distributed five or six days a week to between 70 and 150 families. Each family is allowed to come only once a week, so that's quite a few people. The daily distribution averages 2,000 lbs, a ton. Most of it is 15 ounce cans of fruit, vegetables, and soups, so that's a lot of cans.

At noon there is a free meal, and most people stay for that. There is also a daily clothing distribution, although the scale seems modest. In addition to free food and clothing, the Community Center makes available all kinds of other services.
I encourage you to visit ccstb.org to learn more about the Community Center.

The center was started by Iray Nabatoff, a guy about my age from New Hampshire who came down to help out soon after Katrina and never really left. The center is a real achievement.

Most of the food comes from Second Harvest, a nation-wide food bank. There are many individual donations, though, and people sometimes drop off boxes of cans, no two cans the same. Inventory control is very tight. My job today was to log in the incoming food, carry it from the warehouse to the distribution point, and stock the shelves. Clients then browse the shelves and select what they want, subject to limits like "3 per family". Then they check out exactly as at a grocery store with every item scanned with a bar code reader.

I'm becoming acquainted with other volunteers staying at Camp Hope. There is a college-age contingent from Americorps, but there are also quite a few old codgers like myself. We sit together at an old farts table at dinner. Some people have been coming every year; the Baltimorian in the next bunk is on his sixth trip.

The heavens opened this morning and it rained furiously for several hours. The sun returned in the afternoon and it was a beautiful 50 degree day. I managed another bike ride before dinner.

Check the blog from time to time. I'll be trying to post pictures.