Metro CareRing

I started my field placement on Monday at Metro CareRing. It is a food pantry/emergency assistance agency that is 2 miles from our house in Downtown Denver. Clients come to the center and meet with a counselor who leads an intake session and enters all their data into the computer. Metro CareRing has NO income restrictions, so anyone can come for food assistance. The only stipulation is they have to live in Denver to be eligible for government food and they can only come once every 30 days.
On Monday I worked in the pantry filling "orders." The order form showed me how many people were in the family and how much food they were eligible for. The shelves for government food were completely empty so we relied solely on donated food. I went around the pantry selecting food for the families based on the order sheet that had been filled out with the counselor. The center is hoping to move into bigger space someday so that clients can select their own food, but for now there is not enough room and volunteers select and pack the food bags.
It was a very humbling experience to say the least. One of the families that I filled an order for had 8 children living in the home. They were eligible for 7 cans of fruit, but when I got to the pantry shelf, there was only one jar of applesauce. When I told the pantry supervisor she said, "Here put in an extra box of chocolates...we got a lot of chocolate donations at Christmas." Even though the family was eligible for 6 loaves of bread, the pantry only allowed that I give out one loaf of sliced bread per family. The other 5 bread items had to be selected from the assortment of donated donuts, cookies, pastries, etc that were available. The family with 8 children was the only family I saw all morning who received a gallon of milk.
Besides being a food pantry, Metro CareRing provides bus tokens and assists clients who are trying to retrieve birth certificates needed for work or obtaining government aid.