Thanks to Westgate Curves!

Many, many thanks to the wonderful, generous patrons of the Curves in Tacoma's Westgate area, whose annual food drive netted over 5,000 pounds of food for our NW Tacoma FISH Food Bank.

Here's the collected food at Westgate Curves after only two weeks of the month-long food drive!

The women challenged their colleagues at other local Curves to spur on the collection of needed food and non-food items.

Bargain hunters, unite!

It was a full house yesterday at the United Methodist Church at Lakewood as FISH presented another "Coupons 101" class with blogger Angela Russell. About 50 people listened avidly and asked lots of questions as Angela shared her tips for smart coupon shopping. See Angela's blog, The Coupon Project, for lots of good ideas for smart, ethical bargain shopping.

FISH partners with Tacoma Community College

As part of our commitment to continuous improvement, FISH Food Banks of Pierce County is delighted to be partnering with Tacoma Community College to present a specially designed course in safety and warehouse management for food bank operations. Titled "Safety Excellence in the FISH Food Network," the six-hour class will give FISH Food Bank coordinators and other food warehouse operators an opportunity to look at the most common issues and pitfalls that can create safety hazards.

TCC business instructor Gary Olson has designed the class with input from FISH staff and safety office Marcus Stoll. Topics to be covered include safety training, materials handling, shelving/racking, proper lifting, housekeeping, truck safety, pedestrian safety, use of protective equipment and much more.

We're excited to be working with TCC on this project and hope it's the first of many!

And now for something a little different . . .

Nancy Zarins, who works part-time in our administrative office, is also a local poet.  She shared one of her recent poems with us and we thought it would be great to share it with our friends and supporters.

What Do You See?

You probably never see
The tramp who has to be
Plunging his hands
Through the garbage in cans
To find a half good orange
Maybe

And you've probably never known
Those whose own body
Devours them inward
From the bone

Have you ever seen someone find
An open bottle of wine
And just as his heart
Jumped for his win
And his shaking hands
Lifted the bottle
Towards his shaking mind
His nostrils caught
And cleared and lost,
Shattered.

A green glass wine bottle
Filled with urine.

Some evil slime
Which could have come
From one
Who bought and drank that wine
But most likely was done
From one whose need
Was cruelty.

People talk about "the homeless"
I've heard people say
"Why don't they get it together?
Why do they act that way?"

and, "They could do better of course
They don't have to live that way!
Just lazy and want us to support them
They've already got shelters and welfare
That's more than enough for us to pay."

I saw a man once on a documentary
About our homeless folk today.
He said, "Don't ever think it can't happen to you.
It can happen to anyone. It happened to me.

It could happen tomorrow.
Could happen today.”

And I’ve heard it said
I bet you have, too.
“Whatsoever ye do unto the least of my
brethren,
Ye do unto me.” Yes you do.

When our towns are full of empty buildings
And our trash is clogged with good food
While our countrymen sleep on the sidewalk
In any religion, or no religion, call that a sin.
A real bad sin. Careless management.
No way to treat your kin.

It could be your child, your old friend
Thinking, “I wonder if they remember me?”
It could be your mom or dad. Or you.
Someday, each one of us has to see.

©Nancy Zarins 2011, Tacoma, WA

FISH adds new location

We're very excited that we have now added an eighth location to our network of food banks across Pierce County. Our newest addition is Key Peninsula FISH, located at Key Peninsula Lutheran Church, 4213 Lackey Road KPN, Lakebay. Coordinator Wally Haugaard and volunteers from the church have been running a food bank at that location for about four years, and they now serve approximately 2,500 people per month.
The Key Peninsula location is open on Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday from 2:00-3:00 p.m.

On Wednesday, a new container was installed to provide additional storage on the site, and a group of volunteers from the naval base in Bremerton came out to build and install the shelving. 

New storage container being installed

Volunteers assembling shelving for the new container

Join us for "Coupons 101"

We're excited to announce that we are partnering with The Coupon Project to present "Coupons 101" on Tuesday, March 1 at 1:00 p.m. at Lutheran Church of Christ the King, 1710 85th Street East, Tacoma. (Map)

In this free one-hour class, local bargain blogger Angela Russell of The Coupon Project will share her secrets for smart shopping with coupons.  Let Angela show you how to stretch your budget dollars to the max! Topics will include:

• Why and how you should stockpile
• Where to find coupons and how to keep them organized
• The basics of using coupons with sales 
• Coupon etiquette 101
• Common myths about using coupons
• How to save on groceries beyond using coupons
• How to use coupons in a time-effective way

 For more information or to RSVP, please email us or call us at 253-383-3164

Volunteer training was a hit!

Thanks so much to FISH board member and City of Tacoma EEO officer Jerry Lee, who presented a great workshop on Diversity Awareness yesterday for volunteers from our food banks. About 40 people attended the lunchtime workshop at the Pierce County Library Processing and Administrative Center. Jerry had us all laughing but also gave us a lot to think about as we work to provide the best possible service to our clients. It was a great opportunity to take a look at our biases and assumptions, and how they affect our behavior with the people we encounter. A bit of role-playing provided lots of laughter and also lots of insight.

This was the first in what we plan to be a series of quarterly training sessions for our regular volunteers, and we're inviting all of our volunteers and supporters to suggest topics for future sessions. 

Jerry Lee discusses diversity awareness with FISH volunteers.

Volunteers and staff work together on a diversity exercise at Thursday's workshop.