Food bank needs more than canned pumpkin
August 24, 2010
By Steven Byeon
Every holiday season, the Issaquah Food and Clothing Bank gets slammed with canned pumpkin. Donors from the community this past year gave more than 20 cases, in fact, according to Cherie Meier, director of the food bank.
That’s a lot of pumpkin — 480 cans, to be exact. People donate pumpkin “because they love their pumpkin pie at Thanksgiving and Christmas and so they want to share that,” food bank volunteer Cyndy Heffron said.
In the past, canned pumpkin would stay at the food bank for as long as two years. The food bank offered recipe suggestions to clients with little success.
“Folks didn’t have any idea on how to use it other than the typical holiday fare,” Heffron said.
This year, Heffron created recipe packages that include all of the ingredients necessary for a meal. The recipe packages allow food bank clients to make a given recipe without the hassle of gathering ingredients. Recipes are given in English and Spanish. Heffron assembles and decorates them like gift packages.
“By her doing these recipes, clients have been more than willing to take it, which has really helped,” Meier said.
Heffron searches for recipes on the Internet and through cookbooks, and then tests them on her family. She has created recipe packages for pumpkin bread and pumpkin chili.
“I look for recipes that will be most nutritious and most appealing to the recipients of the food bank,” she said.
Heffron runs a preschool day-care. Her students assist in decorating the packages. She uses the recipe packages as an opportunity for her preschool students to help other children.
Sandra Santos, a food bank client of four years, was pleasantly surprised when she received a recipe package from the food bank.
Speaking through her daughter Clara who acted as an interpreter, she said, “I’m happy, because I normally would not have the opportunity to make something like this.”
Heffron’s next task was to reduce the surplus of peanut butter in the food bank. She has created a peanut butter cereal-bar recipe package, which her students decorated with an Earth Day theme.
“I think it’s a feel-good for the folks that are at the food bank, because they’re used to seeing the same old thing,” Heffron said. “And to have someone say, ‘Would you like this gift bag?’ It’s like ‘Yeah, that’s great,’ and I think it’s a really nice thing for them.”
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There is a canned pumpkin shortage this year – look on ebay, the cans are selling for up to $9 a can. Maybe put an ad in the local paper, will trade pumpkin cans for cans of xxxxxxxx whatever it is you really want. If I lived in your area I would gladly trade for cans of ravioli or soups or whatever. I found this article while searching online for what happened to all the pumpkin this year.