Posted on Sunday, November 14 2004 - 12:36 AM - In The News

The Haven is a community service project in which Dartmouth students may participate. “The Haven is both a day-care and a shelter for children in the Upper Valley and in the Templeton Housing Projects.” The Haven sent the following from their newsletter:

With a large storage space now available for food storage, the Haven has become a client of the Vermont Food Bank, located in South Barre. The Food Bank has a state-of-the-art facility, and receives food from a variety of sources. The Food Bank offers two programs. One is salvaged food, which client agencies are able to buy for a 14 cents per pound shared maintenance fee. The other is called the purchase program, where clients are charged a price based on what the Food Bank pays to buy it. The prices for these items, while more than 14 cents per pound for the food that is donated to the Food Bank, are still significantly lower than prices in the marketplace.

The Food Bank charges an additional 4 cents per pound if it delivers the food, which is once per month. It is also possible to pick the food up.  Haven Resource Coordinator Barbara Henzel has learned the ropes of ordering from the Food Bank, which is more of an art than a science. Items that they have available change daily, and the highly desirable items go quickly, so it is important to be at the ready when the list is emailed each morning at 9. And there are limitations on how far in advance of your monthly delivery you can order.

The Haven now obtains many of the items it stocks the Food Shelf with from the Food Bank. It has resulted in lower costs to the Haven for the purchase of the food, and has cut down on the amount of time Barbara spends out on shopping trips.  In addition to the monthly delivery from the Food Bank on the second Tuesday of each month, volunteers have made special trips to the Food Bank to take advantage of deals that are too good to pass up.