Food Bank’s Role to Give, Not Sell

A story Feb. 27, “Compton Couple Finds Feeding the Hungry Rewards the Soul” (Southeast / /Long Beach sections), gave an excellent profile of how a charitable organization that participates in the Community Food Resources food bank can help serve the needy in its own local community.

However, a correction is in order with respect to the statement, “South Central brings the commodities from a food bank in Vernon, then resells them at the same 10 cents a pound to about 20 ‘pantry’ groups such as Rakestraw.” Community Food Resources does not sell any of the donated food we receive to any of the agencies that participate in our food bank. In addition, South Central and other agencies do not “resell” the food to the needy community they serve.

Community Food Resources operates a shared maintenance program in which we ask participating agencies to contribute nominal sums in connection with some of the food they receive. The contributions help to offset our heavy operating costs. For certain foods, no contribution at all is requested.

In the case of South Central, they are also asking the pantries they serve to contribute toward their costs.

Community Food Resources insists that agencies participating in our food bank adhere to certain guidelines. Agencies which obtain food from us for distribution to the needy cannot make any charge whatsoever to the hungry people who receive the food; the agencies must give the food to the needy.

-- DORIS BLOCH

Executive director

Community Food Resources