By DAVID DUPONT
BG Independent News
The Brown Bag Food Project has moved into its own place.
The project, which provides emergency food and other supplies to people in crisis, has taken up residence at 115 W. Merry St., Unit B, in Bowling Green. It had been operating out of the home of founder Amy Jo Holland’s mother.
Now Brown Bag will start holding regular hours for people to drop off food and other household items and for people in need to pick up deliveries. The office will be open Monday and Wednesday, 5 to 8 p.m., and Friday and Saturday, 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Holland said people can still call at other times. The number is 419-960-5345.
Brown Bag provides five-days of food and sanitary products. The idea is to step in at a time of most need and to direct families to get more permanent assistance. People can only use the service once in a six-month period.
According to the project, about 15 percent of people in Wood County experience food insecurity.
Holland said the project assists about 200 people a month.
Gwen Andrix, member of the board, said they get a couple calls a day.
Holland started Brown Bag last year when she realized that some of her co-workers at WalMart didn’t have enough to eat. The project received its tax-exempt status in June.
“It was always part of our dream to get a place,” said Andrix. The project got some donations that allowed it to have a capital budget and start looking for a place this summer. The West Merry Street location is just about perfect, she said.
The building is just outside the downtown area, a block off North Main Street, near Newman’s Marathon.
“It’s easy to find,” Holland said.
The space seemed a little tight at first, but the board made it work.
The office furnishing were all contributed by Bowling Green State University’s Office of Sustainability. “They were very generous,” Amy Jeffers, another board member, said.
The shelving was either donated or paid for with donations.
This is important given the project’s meager $30,000 budget for the year. The value of a food distribution can be as much as $100 depending on the number of people in the family.
The project has two freezers and a refrigerator.
Fresh food includes eggs, milk, cheese, yogurt, meat, cold cuts, butter, hot dogs, and cottage cheese. There’s also frozen vegetables and bread donated by the Perrysburg Panera to supplement the boxed and canned items.
That means, Andrix said, clients “can sit down and have a balanced meal just like anyone else.”
Now with storage available, the project hopes to expand the number of food drives it holds. The project coordinates the local Martin Luther King Day of Service food drive. Right now they have drives at WalMart and those yield 50-60 boxes of food in two days. Andrix said they’d like to extend that to other supermarkets.
The food drives at supermarkets are especially good because all the food has current use-by and sell-by dates. Sometimes in door-to-door food collections the goods are too old.
Andrix said that the board has made a decision not to distribute food past its sell-by dates.
Jeffers said that Brown Bag is also working with two nutrition students from BGSU to come up with recipes that use the foods available from Brown Bag and other food pantries.
Many times people have limited knowledge of how to cook meals that don’t come in boxes or are ready to microwave. That was especially the case this summer when Brown Bag had fresh produce donated by local farmers, Andrix said. One woman wondered what to do with a squash.
Brown Bag also provides sanitary items, include feminine hygiene products and diapers, which cannot be purchased through the SNAP program.
At the last food drive at WalMart, they made a request for people to donate pet food, so that’s available as well.
Jeffers said another initiative is to survey those who use Brown Bag’s services to see how well they meet their needs.
