Hi Folks,

 

This is no pipe dream. It’s clear-eyed extrapolation based on the success of One Can A Week in the Miles Neighborhood over the past three years.

Last week I was wondering aloud during a computer lesson with Dorrie, my talented writer friend, why I can’t find people in other neighborhoods to get involved collecting food.

Dorrie thought a second and said, “This may not be appropriate in polite company but I think people should earn their Community Food Bank food.”

In the next instant a news story I saw about a year or so ago popped into my head. It showed a guy at the food bank who was young, had no job and was volunteering. He said that since he needed food he thought he would work at the food bank to help pay his way.

“That’s the guy I’m looking for, Dorrie,” I smiled. In my mind, food recipients were off limits, but if that guy is any indication, I’m sure others feel the same way. In fact, I have a number of participants in the neighborhood who tell me all of the time that they are happy to help me because they needed the Community Food Bank once and they just want to give back.

This opened a door to a whole new way of thinking for me and I created a program called The Red Umbrella Corps that hires people each Sunday and pays them $30 for three hours of work.

Since our One Can A Week experience shows that we average 229 lbs. and $50.18 per week, the program could be hugely successful.

But don’t take my word for it. Just do the math. All of the figures are in the table below. Then give me a call because I sure would like to talk about this.  

This entry was posted on Monday, February 6th, 2012 at 11:45 pm and is filed under Life. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.