For all of our 4th Tuesday food box recipients here is what you will discover in your box this month.

$8.00 bag – 2 bananas; 1/2 bunch of broccoli; pototoes – Ontario; small English cucumber; 2 apples; green onions; spinach; lemon; 2 oranges; 1 lb tomatoes; 1 zucchini; 1/2 lb snow peas; mini-carrots

$13.00 box – more bananas, 1 bunch broccoli, more potatoes – Ontario, English cucumber, 4 apples; green onions, cantaloupe, spinach, 2 lemons, 4 oranges, 1 lb tomatoes, 2 zucchini, 1/2 lb snow peas, mini-carrots

$17.00 box – even more bananas; cauliflower, broccoli, more potatoes, English cucumber, 6 apples, green onions, cantaloupe, romaine lettuce, spinach, lemons, 6 oranges, 1 lb tomatoes, zucchini, snow peas, mini carrots.

happy munching!!!

The food box guru

Hello all;

The Halton Fresh Food Box is in the midst of reframing and with it comes challenges and opportunities.

One of our opportunities involves recruiting volunteers to work with us in some different ways.

If you or one of your acquaintances has a few hours to share each week the food box program may just be the place to be. We are looking for a volunteer or 2 who would like to respond to telephone inquires about the program; do data entry for the drop order taking and work to ensure the order information is complete and accurate plus do other office type duties as needed. It would be about 3 hours a week.

We are also looking for volunteers from each of our 5 main communities – Acton, Georgetown, Milton, Oakville and Burlington – to attend and support our communications team members when they do local presentations in your area. We find it is so helpful to have someone who knows the community at the presentations to answer questions that relate to how the program operates in their community. Last week Misty Hobbs from Milton attended our Rotary presentation in Milton and really helped our Board member with the presentation as she could talk about her experience as a drop site coordinator with the program in Milton.

We of course continue to need strong healthy individuals to go out on our trucks to deliver the food boxes on packing days. There are opportunities in Burlington and Georgetown….this is a very important volunteer position as without delivery you cannot get your boxes. We are quite desperate for support in this area at the moment especially for back up people for when our regular volunteers cannot make it.

So give us a call if any of these volunteer opportunities interest you at 905-634-8645.

The food box guru

Today was the annual Volunteer Halton Cheers to Volunteers event. The Halton Fresh Food Box nominated several of our volunteers. We were very excited when Misty Hobbs the Our Kids Network Milton Hub volunteer drop site coordinator was selected as a recipient of the award for her work in Milton.

Misty like all of our 36 drop site volunteer coordinators works tirelessly to promote the food box program in her community. Misty manages up to 50 boxes a month delivered to a very busy drop site where there might be at least one or 2 other events happening all at the same time. She is very organized and certainly runs a tight ship. Misty also often provides valuable advice that helps us manage a well functioning not for profit corporation. Our program is so fortunate to have over 160 wonderful volunteers involved in our day to day operations. Misty is a shining example of this committed team.

Thankyou to all of our volunteers.

Brenda

So sorry to our blog followers…I missed posting the food box for April 17th. If you are still wondering what exciting produce you will be getting tomorrow here is a quick peak…..oh by the way because we are packing 480 boxes in one morning we have opted to put produce items in the boxes that require no pre-weighing or portioning out. Everything is being packed by count not weight. It just takes us too long to weigh and bag so keep that in mind when you see the listing of items in your box.

Every box or bag has a quantity of bananas, red pepper, broccoli, English cucumber, local MacIntosh apples, green onions, spinach, lemons, oranges, tomatoes, zucchini, avocado, mini carrots. Amounts vary with box size purchased. The $17 boxes also have cabbage, romaine lettuce and cauliflower while the $17 and $13 also have a cantaloupe. The $8 bag has a couple of black plums.

The food box program is presently relooking at how we operate. We are facing some challenges such as funding and capacity. We are at the point of making some major decisions around minimum orders and maximum orders per drop site. Our orders have skyrocketed over the past year and we just do not have the resources to meet the demand. We will be meeting with drop site coordinators and key community partners over the next few weeks to get their insights into how to maintain our quality service while either capping the present number of boxes packed each month OR in fact potentially even decreasing the number of boxes we sell each month by about 200 boxes…right now we do around 850 boxes which is putting a real strain on our staff, our volunteers and our financial resources. Wish us well as we work with you to try and overcome some of our challenges. We are somewhat excited about it as we believe that retooling what we do and how we do it can sometimes lead to some real innovations. We hope you will stay with us on the journey and in fact help us by thinking about innovative ways that we can get still get your locally grown qualty affordable fresh fruits and vegetables onto your plate.

Until next time
The foodbox guru

Last week as I wrote the blog I was basking in the sunshine and watching my magnolia tree come to life with beautiful blooms. Today I look out and see the odd snowflake and my magnolia tree is covered in brown drooping blooms…so much for spring!!! I wait with great anticipation each year for that tree to burst into glory – such a downer that this year it was over in a flash.

So goes it for the food box also. April and May are the months we struggle most with putting together our great food boxes. Quality and quantity is just not the best in early spring. We need to go out of country for most of our produce as our winter roots are showing their age while our greenhouse treasures are still emerging. But we still carry on. I think you will be pleased with the variety in your box and I challenge you to let us know what you did with your produce this month.

There are still local apples, and potatoes and some greenhouse items like English cucumbers and green onions (for just a hint of spring!). There are our old favorourites broccoli,cauliflower, Romaine lettuce, and spinach. For a bit of excitement we have added snow peas, zucchini, mini carrots, tomatoes and a cantaloupe. Of course we added oranges, bananas and lemons.

Check out the newsletter’s last page for the Top Ten Ways to Eat More Local Food. I thought it was a right time for us all to start preparing for the growing season…hope you can put the tips to good use.

We are also doing an evaluation so would appreciate your thoughts. Please go to http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/SWJNNLM and help us prepare our Halton Fresh Food Box story. Customer feedback is extremely important as we work to secure funding to keep the program going. We are in a funding shortfall by the end of July so we need you to help us NOW.

For more information please do not hesitate to comment back or call me at 905-484-9603.

Happy munching in April
Brenda