Basic Food Pantry Operations

The Food Pantry is a centralized warehouse for the collection, organization, storage and distribution of groceries.  The groceries are assembled either through food drives conducted during the year or purchased with donation received from the community (see Who Helps Us). They are shelved for easy access by volunteers who pack grocery boxes for families Monday through Friday. Over 30 social service agencies and community churches partner with the food pantry to help direct groceries to the most needy families in Franklin County.  Families visit these agencies or churches and provide relevant information about their grocery needs.  The churches in turn forward these requests to ROSM which maintains all previous data regarding food requests from families in accordance with Food Pantry criteria for determining emergency grocery needs.  If the criteria are met, ROSM forwards their information to the Food Pantry volunteers who prepare grocery boxes for the family.    Each family receives enough food to prepare a week’s worth or 21 meals.  The average value of groceries provided to each family is $100.  The number of items boxed is dependent on the size of the family requesting assistance.  

Volunteers who fill grocery requests perform the following tasks:

       1.  assemble number of boxes needed;
       2.  label each box with relevant information;
       3.  select recommended number of items from each food category for families;
       4.  load items in boxes;
       5.  call social service/church agency that has requested grocery help;
       6.  assist agencies loading boxes into vehicles for delivery to clients.

To keep the shelves stocked, volunteers perform the following tasks:

• order groceries;
• pick up groceries from store;
• deliver groceries to food pantry;
• sort and shelve new groceries.