MAY & JUNE 2021 NEWSLETTER
COVID-19 POP-UP VACCINATION EVENTS
Facilitated by the Danbury Health Dept. and Community Health Clinic, June saw us host two pop-up vaccination events during our regular distributions hours. While Connecticut as a whole is doing pretty well getting folks vaccinated, Danbury lags behind, especially in the communities we serve. So even getting just a few more people their shot means Daily Bread is not only helping to deal with the economic fall-out of the pandemic, but also entering the fight against COVID directly. At the first event, we even sweetened the deal with a large tomato plant for everyone stepping up.
Not just for clients - regular volunteer Gladys Alimonte gets her shot
Thanks to the professional and enthusiastic team from Community Health Center!
LATEST DISTRIBUTION STATISTICS
2021 JANUARY - JUNE CLIENT NUMBERS
Volunteer Spotlight - June/July 2021
Since this Newsletter covers two months, spotlighted here are not one, not two, but three absolutely amazing volunteers, without whom the Pantry would not be able to function. Debbie Fantel and husband Ken are pictured here with Debbie's brother Jay (at right), making their support of Daily Bread a truly family affair.
While it would be tempting to seed family rivalry by picking just one of them, even I cannot bring myself to do that. They are a family within the wider Daily Bread family and should be honored as team. For the few that don't know, Debbie pretty much lives at the Pantry - packing bags pre-distribution, multi-tasking during the actual distributions, and generally keeping the ship on course. Normally I'd uncharitably ascribe such dedication to wanting to get away from one's spouse, but Ken is at the Pantry almost as much as Debbie. Even more perplexing, and despite the close quarters, no marital discord is ever detected. A mystery and a miracle!
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Jay, who drives what undoubtedly is the cleanest pickup truck I have ever seen (Ken would win in the full-size SUV category), perhaps flies slightly more under the radar for folks who volunteer mainly at distributions. But Jay is a one-man logistics machine, transporting food back and forth from their storage facility (this very same gang donates space for our use), unloading the Food Bank truck, and doing a million other things that help make the Pantry run smoothly. Jay even puts up with my hopeless attempts at stacking stuff, even though I know it almost kills him to see me do it.
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I'm just scratching the surface here, but I will spare further blushes from this incredibly generous but modest and unassuming bunch. Thank you for all you do.
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Just let me close by saying if you ever need storage, and the Pantry isn't taking up all available spare lockers, South St. Self Storage rivals even Jay's and Ken's vehicles in terms of cleanliness. Truly a first-rate facility on all levels.
HOUSEKEEPING NOTES
1. Pop Quiz Answer: Really depends on how much you want to annoy Pete Jeffrey.
On balance though, the satisfaction derived from annoying Pete is not worth chucking the boxes away. These boxes make organization of random items from food rescues and elsewhere easier to sort, store and transport on the carts. Let the boxes live!
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2A. Newsletter: The more sharp-eyed of you may have noticed a small change to the Newsletter masthead - this issue covers two months, June and July. I'm not sure whether this will be a permanent change, but at least it will give your inbox a respite over the summer. I do like putting the Newsletter together but, like my non-functional Dualit toaster repurposed for more whimsical duties, sometimes I think the utility/affection ratio may have gotten out of whack.
2B. Also Newsletter: I am conscious that if you click on every item, that's a lot of me. If you would like to join the editorial team, or just have something you'd like to say about anything Pantry or food insecurity-related that could be included in the Newsletter, let me know.
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3. Dumpster Trampolining: I recognize this activity to tamp down the contents of the recycling container is very popular, but please, take your turn. Otherwise, we will have a repeat of this unedifying image, where Parking Tsarina Jane Alexander and I fight for the right to bounce. (On reflection, it was Jane's turn, so once again my bad.) More seriously, please take care if engaging in this sometimes vital task. It keeps me awake at night worrying about the newspaper headlines if someone kills themselves.
4. Using the Sign-In App. By and large, using the iPad Pro for signing in and out has worked very well. It allows for much greater accuracy in tracking who has been in the Pantry - still important for COVID-19 safety - and also provides great data to track volunteer hours (important for recognition and grant-writing purposes). Some wrinkles though:
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Except perhaps for the very first time you volunteer, your name is in the system. Typing the first few letters of your name (first name first) brings up all matches in the system. PICK YOUR NAME before you hit "Continue". Otherwise, you will be entered in the system multiple times (if you typed your full name) or it will add you to the system as just the letters you did type before hitting Continue. Not a big deal, I can nearly always tell who it is, but not really optimal usage.
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If you can, remember to sign out. Again, not a big deal, I can usually make a pretty good guess when anyone has left (and you are signed out automatically after six hours), but it would be better to do a proper sign-out.
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If your name does not appear when you come to sign out, don't blame the system - it is because you have not followed the procedure in the first bullet. You can only sign out if you are properly signed in
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5. Key to the Church Hall: Except under truly exceptional circumstances, do not take the key with you into the Hall. Even if you remember to bring it out, you may have caused untold consternation in the meantime as people frantically look for it in order to visit the bathroom or whatever. Use the "buddy system" to unlock the Hall door, then hand it to the buddy to place back in the drawer. Your key buddy does not have to be an actual buddy. Use your worst enemy if you have to.
FOOD SAFETY
We'll get to the Swiss cheese in a minute, but let me start with a proposition that I hope we all can agree on. No matter how important our mission to feed those in need might be, our first and foremost priority must be to keep our clients - and ourselves - safe. If you do not agree with that, then perhaps juggling chainsaws might be a better fit for you than working at the Pantry. But back to why you came here: how I messed up.
Towards the beginning of June, we were wrapping up a regular Tuesday distribution. Most of the volunteers had dispersed to the mysteries of their lives outside of the Pantry, so it was just me and a couple of others who were still there when James and the Green Monster showed up with about six billion boxes of personal care items. The delivery wasn't unexpected, but its size certainly was. To be clear, that wasn't James's fault - he was just wearing his delivery driver hat here - but it was the trigger in the model described below.
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Anyway, I was tired and I was concerned the other volunteers might be tired too. So when we quickly ran out of space in the designated areas for personal care storage, I told everyone to just stick the remainder anywhere they could find a space - including above food items. Now, this is a big no-no in the food safety world for the obvious reason a leak could contaminate food below it. I rationalized it by thinking that I'd be at the next distribution as usual and could make sure nothing had indeed leaked. But I knew I was crossing some sort of line and said to myself, "gee, I hope Tom Himmelright doesn't see this." I may have even said it aloud. I was actually thinking more about the higgledy-piggledy stacking than the leak risk (Tom was very particular about keeping our shelves neat and orderly), but that was certainly a red flag.
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Well, wouldn't you know it, Tom showed up in the Pantry before the next distribution and DID see it. Quite rightly, he reported it to the Board and the best I can say about the sorry affair is that I took my lumps with good grace and out-of-character humility.
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Clearly a learning moment for me, and I resolved to make a little lemonade out of lemons in this Newsletter with a request for everyone to read Connecticut Food Bank's Food Safety Handbook, and perhaps even take the accompanying test. The problem was, I HAD read the Handbook, several times. For once, ignorance wasn't my problem, it was something else. So to squeeze maximum lemonade out of this, let's take a look at ALL the ways we can try and avoid food safety-related incidents at the Pantry.
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The Swiss Cheese Model of accident prevention proposes that reducing risk is best achieved by layered security. The idea is that, if you have lots of layers, it doesn't matter if there is a failure (a hole in the cheese) in one - the next layer will stop a trigger becoming an accident. There are lots of variations of the model, but the idea is intuitively grasped.
Insofar as Daily Bread is concerned and the personal care items story in particular, we have a big hole in our facilities layer - the Pantry is extremely small and that inevitably introduces risks. In the short and medium-term, there is not much we can do about that. So that means we need to work on the other layers. Some things - policies, training and culture, for example, are mainly the responsibility of the Board. But other things are the responsibility of everyone. In particular:
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Please do read the Food Safety Handbook if you have not already (if you want to take the related test, let me know - it requires you to input some information about the Pantry)
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Speak up if you see anything you think is wrong or risky, or are asked to do something you think is risky - I hope the Pantry is operated in a non-hierarchical way but when it comes to safety it is most definitely a totally level platform.
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If another volunteer tells you that what you are doing is not safe, don't get defensive. Even if you don't agree, take a step back, say thank you for pointing that out, and seek a second opinion from a Pantry leader.​
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Unless willful, repeated and dangerous, no-one at the Pantry will get into trouble for mistakes.
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Don't get hung up on the details of the graphic (I've somewhat arbitrarily grouped layers together for example), but do think about how the general concepts in each layer apply to the Pantry.
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Be aware of the "human factors" I've listed that can act as a catalyst to the trigger:
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By "routinization", I mean don't let the fact that a risky practice or behavior has not resulted in an incident before justify continuing it. You may be relying on the very last layer of all - luck.​
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By "missionitis", I mean sacrificing safety to accomplish the Pantry's goal of helping others - or getting any particular task done that seems important at the time.
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In addition to what I've listed, try to be aware of your own personality traits that might introduce risks. For example, I am extremely susceptible to missionitis and, more subtly, inclined to sympathize excessively with people who have caused spectacular disasters. If you feel most bad for Captain Smith when you think about the Titanic, you share that trait. Armchair psychology, but I think I'm mentally giving myself a bit of a free pass for my own inevitable next screw-up.
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Watch Titanic and think about the Swiss Cheese Model. Not really all Captain Smith's fault, was it?​
Food Safety is just one aspect of safety at the Pantry. I'm sure I will return to the wider subject in future Newsletters. In the meantime, stay safe, everyone.
"Building Back Better" Survey Results
Thank you to all that completed the survey. Your input is vital to how we move forward as the pandemic (hopefully) continues to recede and our client numbers fall. If you did not take the survey, you can still do so by clicking here. If you are interested in reading my thoughts on the results, you can click here.
Q.1. Have you volunteered at the Pantry during distributions since the start of the pandemic?
Q.2-1.* Thinking about your experience as a volunteer, how much do you enjoy working at the Pantry during distributions?
Q.2-2.* How do you think most clients would rate their experience at the Pantry?
*Only asked if respondent volunteered during the pandemic
Q.3. What do you think are the ADVANTAGES of our current distribution model? Check all that apply.
Q.4. What do you think are the DISADVANTAGES of our current distribution model? Check all that apply.
Q.5. How important is the current distribution model to your commitment to volunteering at Daily Bread?
Q.6. Would you still volunteer for Daily Bread if it operated more like a small store? (i.e., open more days a week for longer hours).
Q.7. If the Pantry were open from 8:00 AM until 6:00 PM, what days of the week would you be available to volunteer?
Q.8. With the Pantry operating in "shop" mode, how many hours in a given day would you consider working for?
Q.9. Would you consider volunteering in the evening (assuming it would close no later than 8:00PM)?
Q.10. For safety and other reasons, what do you think should be the MINIMUM number of volunteers in the Pantry during "open" hours?
Q.11. One advantage of longer opening hours is that we could offer more individual guidance and support to clients (for example, make them aware of other assistance available such as SNAP (food stamp) benefits). Would you be prepared to learn about these programs and provide guidance to clients?
Q.12. Another possible enhancement to our services would be to offer delivery options to home-bound clients. Would you be prepared to help with such a program by making deliveries?
Q.13. Let 'em rip! Give us YOUR thoughts on how we might improve our distribution model. Your ideas can develop on the previous questions or be completely different.*
* Some comments edited for brevity, but that doesn't mean the full comment is not appreciated or has not been considered in full. Let me know if you'd like the full version of all comments.
Some Thoughts On The Survey
First, some context. The Newsletter email (and therefore the survey) was sent to a little shy of 200 volunteers or ex-volunteers. Around 70% opened the email, and around 45% clicked through to one or more articles (this is fairly typical for the Newsletter). 19% of recipients clicked through to the survey and 15% actually took it. By most marketing standards, that's a pretty high level of engagement, but it is worth bearing in mind that these numbers indicate that by no means is every viewpoint represented.
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My major takeaway is that Daily Bread has some awesome and dedicated volunteers who are committed to helping at the Pantry even if we experiment with other ways to serve our clients. That said, the current distribution model has produced a small silver lining from the pandemic - a much larger base of volunteers who spend many hours at the Pantry every week. (Pre-pandemic, only a few volunteers spent more than a few hours per month at the Pantry). There is no doubt changing the model risks losing the unique atmosphere that is so apparent at pandemic-era distributions. So we need to proceed cautiously. Moving to a model that MIGHT benefit some clients more would not be worthwhile if volunteer commitment was substantially diluted and therefore the needs of the majority of clients were potentially prejudiced.
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On the other hand, comparing the advantages identified of the current model versus the disadvantages, the latter far outweigh the former. Now, I must admit to having my hand lightly touching the scale here, because of the way the questions were formulated. But even taking this into account, it is clear the vast majority of volunteers can see significant drawbacks in the way we are currently doing things. I believe this is still the case, even though client satisfaction as assessed by volunteers is high. With regard to that assessment, I do not think it is too wide of the mark, but we'd need to do some direct polling of clients to validate it. And even if it were true, I don't think we should be too complacent about it. We are giving away a large quantity of free, high-quality food. We would definitely need to be doing something seriously wrong if that did not generate pretty high satisfaction scores.
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The next steps will be to review the survey results with our Board, and then let the whole thing percolate for a few weeks. There are several moving pieces involved in making any changes, not least the client visit trends shown here and some interesting new functionality being introduced by our Pantry Management software (it will be able to support a reservation system for the first time). In the end though, I strongly believe we should be making some changes this year. The Pantry transformed itself virtually overnight to respond to the pandemic, but we transformed into an operation very tailored to the moment. We owe it to our clients - and to our donors and other supporters - to transform once again as conditions change and best practices in responding to food insecurity evolve.
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That's my two cents. As always, let me know your thoughts - in person or via contact@dailybreadfoodpantry.com.
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