Mike Curtin

Thank you all for being so willing to be part of what we do. As someone said earlier, we do try to get everyone here as close to 5 as possible, but there have been, and I imagine always will be, straglers. One of the issues, and please don't let this distress or deter anyone, is security. As we only don't control the kitchen portion of the building and there are many people coming and going, we like to keep the doors locked after the evening volunteers arrive. But if we're good at nothing else, we are good at adjusting; so if we can put a group together, we can figure it out. This evening shift is something that is pretty special to us as it represents a whole new way to accomplish one of our goals which is to make the most effective use of existing resources. In addition to what we are getting from the gleening network, we are buying seconds or unclassified produce from local farmers using a fair trade model. This allows us to help sustain local agriculture by purchasing food that would otherwise probably rot in the fileds or orchards, engage more community volunteers, put better, healthier product into the community and hire more graduates from our culinary job training program to staff these shifts, all while we reduce the amount of money we spend to supplement what we can't get donated. Our next step is to start producing products using what we buy via the coop to sell off to producers, grocery stores, fellow nonprofits and sell ourselves at farmers' markets. In describing our programs, many people use the Chinese proverb, "give a man a fish; feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish; feed him for a lifetime." That's worked pretty well so far, but it hasn't worked well enough. What we wnat to do now, is create a whole new way to fish. If we can get a number of folks we think can attend, I'll have our Voluneer Manager block out that number of slots and we'll go from there. Again, thank you so much for your support and your desire to help us feed the soul of the City -- Mike