Food Bank Friday! March 06, 2009!

[ColbertWatcher]

Needs your immediate attention

The people at the http://friendsofpineridgereservation.org/projects/Winter_Coats_and_Electric_Heaters.shtml">Pine Ridge Reservation, South Dakota. They're looking for winter coats and space heaters. Please help any way you can.

In addition, everyone's favorite Alaskan blogger Mudflats has some serious and scary news about the tiny community of Emmonak, Alaska here.

Alaska Newspapers, Inc. has been delivering donated supplies with their newspapers to the tiny rural communities in Alaska (like Emmonak), and they provide a link to their shopping list for donations.

For more information about Emmonak, please check out: The Mudflats, http://divasblueoasis.com/showDiary.do;jsessionid=9355C7FA69BC2C072FB445409C53FF5C?diaryId=422">Celtic Diva's Blue Oasis and http://progressivealaska.blogspot.com/2009/01/spirit-of-emmonak-burns-brightly-in.html">Progressive Alaska.

Why is this posted every week?

Many media outlets are http://news.google.com/news?hl=en&tab=wn&ned=us&nolr=1&q=food+banks+demand+up&btnG=Search">reporting that many food banks across the country are running out of food.

Nearly 30 million people are receiving food stamps in the U.S. (http://news.google.com/news?hl=en&tab=wn&ned=us&nolr=1&q=food+stamps+30+million&btnG=Search">Google news search)

2/19/2009 Update: Duer babylonsister posted a New York Times article with the latest on hunger in America.

Some donation ideas

* donate money DUer peace13 reminds us that if a food bank accepts money, they can get food in bulk. Also consider donating office supplies to the organization that runs the food bank (old computers, phones, fax machines, paper, etc)

* "adopt" a food bank item and replenish it whenever it runs low (posted by DUer girl gone mad)

* donate birthday or holiday "kits" (DUer Rabrrrrrr)

* support Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) http://www.chiron-communications.com/farms.html

* donate to Second Harvest http://www.feedingamerica.org/?show_nce=1

* Find and donate "free after rebate" items offered by many stores http://www.salescircular.com/

Support your local cooperative extension service

* From the extension links in this section, donate all the items to complete one of the recipes (print out and donate copies of the recipe, too!)

* Donate recipe books (or other publications on nutrition) from your local cooperative extension service (Most states cooperative extensions services have all kinds of things available)

Also, after a quick google search for "cooperative extension service recipe," here are three of the top links:

* The University of Nebraska-Lincoln Recipe Central http://lancaster.unl.edu/food/recipe.shtml#basic">Basic Foods From Fridge, Freezer and Cupboard, including a single-page http://lancaster.unl.edu/FOOD/BasicFoodsforCupboard.pdf">list of ingredients (pdf) for all the recipes on the UNL site

* Cornell University Cooperative Extension-New York City's complete (http://nyc.cce.cornell.edu/nutrition/recipes/2008/NH%20Recipe%20Collection.pdf">Nutirion and Health Program Recipe Collection) (pdf)

* University of Arkansas Division of Agriculture's Cooperative Extension Service Departments Family and Consumer Sciences Programming
Recipes recipes for people with diabetes

DUer 1776Forever posted a link for the University of Maine Cooperative Extension in another thread.

More information about the Cooperative State Research, Education and Extension Service (Main website and Food, Nutrition and Health links)

The Cooperative Extension System is a nationwide, non-credit educational network. Each U.S. state and territory has a state office at its land-grant university and a network of local or regional offices. These offices are staffed by one or more experts who provide useful, practical, and research-based information to agricultural producers, small business owners, youth, consumers, and others in rural areas and communities of all sizes.

CSREES is the federal partner in the Cooperative Extension System. It provides federal funding to the system and, through program leadership, helps the system identify and address current issues and problems.

Food bank checklist

* Print out the flier below and make copies for your friends, family or co-workers to take with you when you go grocery shopping.

* surreptitiously leave copies at the grocery store!

(You don't have to pick up everything on the list, just remember to pick up something.)

If you're unable to donate at this time, but may need assistance yourself, please check out these ideas from your fellow DUers ...

* DUer readmoreoften has some great advice for where to find inexpensive food in your area

* DUer ProgrezivIndie compiled several links on one webpage for medical, food, jobs help (check out the thread).

* Please support candidates and policies that guarantee livable wages.

[Triana]

1. XoXoXoX!!!

I love that you do this every week. It's MUCH needed.

[ColbertWatcher]

2. I missed last Friday.

But, your thanks are much appreciated!

Thank you.

[I Have A Dream]

3. K&R! nt

[ColbertWatcher]

4. Thank you! n/t

[ProgrezivIndie]

5. your post is very much appreciated, thank you - k&r

I'm still trying to digest it all. As an example, I had never thought to look into the cooperative extension service resources. But after reading here, I decided to check out Virginia's (VT/VSU) website resources. There's LOTS of good info there. As one example:

Here in Southeastern VA, we're occasionally the target of mother nature's hurricanes... with resulting flooding & lengthy periods of power outages. The question then arises, what to do if food stuffs have been covered by flood waters, or if frozen food stuffs have partially or completely thawed? Well, I drilled down, on their website, and found some good advice:

Starting with their SITE INDEX here:
http://ext.vt.edu/siteindex.html

Then selected HEALTH, NUTRITION & FOODS:
http://www.ext.vt.edu/cgi-bin/WebObjects/Docs.woa/wa/getcat?cat=ir-hnf

Then selected FOOD SAFETY:
http://www.ext.vt.edu/cgi-bin/WebObjects/Docs.woa/wa/getcat?cat=ir-hnf-fsaf

Then selected SAFE FOODS AFTER A DISASTER:
http://www.ext.vt.edu/pubs/disaster/490-302/490-302.html

There I found some very useful and important information.

So, thanks again!

[ColbertWatcher]

7. Wow!

Now that's why I love the internets!

Thank you for posting this!

I will certainly add it for next week's thread!

[Triana]

6. Kick - rate it up - this is important info for a lot of people. n/t

[ColbertWatcher]

8. Thank you.

I usually post this in GD for more exposure, but somehow I forgot to click over and well, this is certainly a more appropriate place for this thread.

[Triana]

9. No prob. I don't think many would complain if you put it in GD

but then again...this IS DU... ;)

[ColbertWatcher]

10. LOL!

I usually hang out in GD and post there because it is a busier forum.