Day 3 and 4- The Treat Box
Photo credit: Steve Snodgrass
At the Food Bank, there’s what’s called the Treat Box – a scuffed office supply-sized box that sits on the edge of the table near the slats of mandatory canned food.
Odds and ends from donation bins and the daily Trader Joe’s delivery that don’t fall lockstep in with the required pasta, fruit, vegetable, and protein selections for the family boxes go into the Treat Box. Its contents are jewels that outshine the mundane.
A peek in there reveals everything from the retro- Sanka coffee – to the glamorous- Ginger Chocolate Pear spread. Put that spread on top of a Farmers Market donated Granny Smith apple and a slice of Trader Joe’s donated brie, and a Food Bank recipient could easily have a gourmet dessert.
Then there are Treat Box items that defy easy classification. There’s the “terminally unhealthy”- Pop Tarts snacksters, 100 calorie squares of chemicals- to “the last-minute hostess gift grocery grab” -black licorice Scottie Dogs- to the “items for weight conscious” patrons”- a Nutri-System Egg Frittata.
There are also items I would put in the “sad” classification because these “treats” are everyday items – olive oil, salad dressing, jam- that people who don’t need a Food Bank put on their grocery lists.
Looking at the everyday mixed in with the exotic- I truly see that this world is divided into haves and have-nots.
Volunteers can take from the Treat Box too, but I would never think to do so. Potato chips are an everyday staple in my pantry, so I would never think to eat a bag of Doritos that could be squeezed lovingly into a family box.
Others don’t think as hard as I do. Some volunteers think the Treat Box is a free-for-all, snagging what they find palatable from it while waiting for the Trader Joe’s delivery rush. In such a state, one volunteer took a box of raisins other day.
“I always love a sweet snack,” he said.
Was I being too puritanical, I thought as I saw him zestfully pour a handful of raisins into his hand, shaped like a golf club handle because golfing 12 holes was his first job before his 10 a.m. to 3 p.m Food Bank shift. Shouldn’t those raisins be in the clumsy fingers of a small child whose only other fruit was diabetes-inducing, syrupy canned Fruit Cocktail?
My thinking was affirmed the next week when we were told that, along with having to discount Cranberry Cocktail as a 100 percent fruit juice in order for it to be placed in a family box, volunteers who wanted a treat should take it from somewhere else.
Take produce or an expired Trader Joe’s salad. But the Treat Box selections should only be for clients, the manager said.
The Raisin-Snacker Volunteer was not too pleased with this as his hunger began creeping up at 12:00 PM again.
“I guess I will get a salad after that lecture we got,” he said, walking to one of the refrigerators.
Funny, I hadn’t thought of it as a lecture- just the program manager pointing out the right thing to do.