A Whole Lotta Food

Each week-day morning, a van arrives at the EECM Food Pantry full of groceries. There are bags of loaf bread, muffins and bagels, boxes of vegetables and fruit, and cases of canned goods and non-perishables.

The origin of the van is Whole Foods Market. Whole Foods is one of EECM’s most loyal supporters, providing hundreds of pounds of food to our Pantry every week. How much is a Whole Lotta Food? Well, to give you a sense of the numbers, in the month of December, Whole Foods donated the following:

25 boxes* of apples
31 bags* of bagels
23 bags of bakery items
37 boxes of bananas
1 box of bulk foods
3 boxes of canned goods
1 case of cereal
2 boxes of cucumbers
18 boxes of overstock items
1 box of lemons
208 bags of loaf bread
1 box of melons
97 boxes of mixed fruit and vegetables
61 bags of muffins
3 boxes of oranges
1 box of peaches
4 boxes of peppers
23 boxes of potatoes
57 boxes of prepared foods
45 boxes of salads
22 boxes of sandwiches
8 boxes of snacks
3 boxes of soups
1 case of bottled water

That’s 352 boxes and 323 bags of groceries. Purchasing that quantity of food would cost the Pantry over $20,000. And that’s just for December.

The icing on the cake is that the food we get from Whole Foods is Good Food. Interesting food. Organic food. Healthy food. We can offer our clients organic bananas and whole-grain bread. Fresh fruits and vegetables to supplement the canned goods we receive from other sources. It’s wonderful and we are grateful every day to have Whole Food Market as a committed partner in our ministry.

* Note: whenever you see the word “box” or “bag” you should in your mind preface it with extravagant adjectives like “huge” or “really really big” or “impressively large”. We’re not talking shoe-boxes and sandwich bags, here.