Giving and Receiving Food at CEAP’s Brooklyn Center Food Shelf
Lorri has been coming to the Community Emergency Assistance Programs’ (CEAP) Food Market for about a year now as both a volunteer and a shopper. CEAP, a Second Harvest Heartland partner food shelf, provides neighbors with information, referrals, and resources like groceries in their facility in Brooklyn Center, MN.
Visiting CEAP was Lorri’s first time coming to a hunger-relief organization to help make ends meet. “I retired a few years back,” she explained. “I was delivering groceries, and it was just getting a bit too much with gas prices and food prices and trying to battle the weather. I just felt it was safer for me not to work anymore. So, I had to make some considerations, and food was one of them.”
CEAP’s Food Market uses an online ordering system to allow visitors like Lorri to make an appointment once a month to get free groceries. Visitors pick their food selections ahead of time from a list of fresh produce, canned goods, dry goods, meat, and dairy, indicating what they do and don’t want in their pick-up order. Then, at the appointment time, visitors pull up in their cars and volunteers load boxes of food into their vehicles. Lorri finds the process very convenient and appreciates the ability to choose which foods she wants each month. “I like a lot of fresh veggies,” she said. “And the protein, the meat. That's been very helpful too, because the meat prices are crazy.”
Lorri packs fresh produce boxes for other CEAP shoppers.
As a volunteer, Lorri packs the same kind of fresh produce boxes that she receives for other food shelf visitors once a week. “I ensure that the produce is good,” she said. “That it's within the date that's acceptable and make sure that it isn't spoiled or wilted or anything. I make sure everybody gets a nice variety.”
Lorri appreciates the positive experience she’s had as a CEAP volunteer, noting that everyone pitches in to make the food packing and distribution run smoothly. “It's wonderful to get out and to see the other side of it, of how things are done,” she said of volunteering at CEAP. “The people I work with here—the other volunteers and the CEAP employees—it’s a real good group.”
As a new food shelf visitor, Lorri said it took a lot of bravery to come to CEAP to receive food for the first time, but a message she received during her volunteer orientation really helped her see that she wasn’t alone. “Everybody has something they need,” she said. “And if it's as simple as paying your light bill or buying groceries? Get your groceries and pay your light bill. So, [that made me realize] it's okay for me to be here.”