Many of the holiday tables of those most in need in Northern Arizona will have benefited from regular deliveries up the hill from Phoenix of staple food items in semi trucks from St. Mary’s Food Bank Alliance. The destination for trucks is the Flagstaff Family Food Center warehouse on East Huntington Drive.
“From Havasu across through Snowflake, we handle everything north of that,” said Dan Rogers, who has been a driver for 14 years, including 17 months with SMFBA. “Each driver makes four trips, one a day. Sometimes if we go to farther-out points, like Fredonia, we sleep out; we spend one night out on the truck.”
Rogers, who has been a driver for 14 years and has been with SMFBA for 17 months, knows the importance of the cargo he carries. His family, including his wife and two children, received help from St. Mary’s when they were caught in the economic downturn several years ago.
Throughout the summer, Rogers and other drivers often hauled 16,000 pounds or more of food on each jump – about 22 pallets worth.
Looking toward the holiday season, deliveries also included turkeys, four to a box, which topped out at 1,000 turkeys brought to Flagstaff by SMFBA by the week before Thanksgiving.
Just after dawn in freezing mid-November temperatures, the last 300 Butterball Premium turkeys made it up the hill in a 53-foot semi truck driven by St. Mary’s driver Emilio Rivas, who has been driving for the non-profit since January 2013.
“I’m not buying a turkey for the holiday, ” he said. “But I’ll be helping pay for the food that we’re going to eat. I’ve got four sisters and eight brothers who’ve invited me over.”
The turkeys are an integral part of the food boxes given out at the Flagstaff Family Food Center on North Second Street.
Opened in Christmas 1991, FFFC has operated a food kitchen that has become a vital resource for hungry families and individuals in the Flagstaff area.
“We’ll be out of these by the Friday before Thanksgiving,” said Tim Joyce, a retiree who used to work at SMFBA and now works at FFFC. “I took 312 turkey over there this morning; they won’t last very long.”
Joyce worked hard using a forklift to unload boxes with the last turkeys, putting 120 of them inside one of the coolers at the warehouse.
He knows from experience that as fast as the boxes arrive, there will be families waiting for them at the food center.
Another 155 turkeys were collected at Albertsons in Flagstaff on Nov. 22 during the eighth annual Super Saturday Turkey Drive sponsored by St. Mary’s. These turkeys joined the 1,000 already taken to the warehouse for those hungry at the holidays.
This link between St. Mary’s Food Bank Alliance and Flagstaff Family Food Center has created a partnership that has become critical to efforts to provide food to the desperately hungry in Northern Arizona.
Throughout the year, other local non-profit venues welcome thousands of pounds of St. Mary’s food to their door: St. Vincent de Paul Flagstaff, Coconino Adult Center at Thorpe Park, Flagstaff Family Food Center, Hope Cottage/Sunshine Rescue Mission, as well as six other Flagstaff pantries and non-profits.
And the same scene is regularly repeated all over Northern Arizona, from the Nevada border to deep inside the Navajo Nation.
According to SMFBA findings, in 2014 trucks from St. Mary’s will have delivered more than 15 million pounds of food to Northern Arizona, more than at any time in the 47-year history of the world’s first food bank.
The warehouse on East Huntington Drive is the former home of the Northern Arizona Food Bank, which after 27 years of service closed due to financial problems in September 2013.
That same month, a merger was created when the board of directors at the Flagstaff Family Food Center approved the acquisition of the NAFB, and a new name was chosen: Flagstaff Family Food Center: Food Bank and Kitchen.
St. Mary’s is one of the largest food banks in the country and a member of Feeding America, a network of 200 regional food banks across the United States that serves two-thirds of Arizona, including Sedona, Prescott, Flagstaff and all of Northern Arizona.
According to the non-profit’s statistics, St. Mary’s provides food to more than 300 partner agencies, 80 of which are in Northern Arizona.
Steve Saville has served as FFFC executive director since 2013.
“Together, the Flagstaff Family Food Center: Food Bank and Kitchen and St. Mary’s Food Bank Alliance continue to quickly respond to the ever increasing food insecurity need of our community,” Saville explained. “Together, we have set up the most streamlined, efficient and economical emergency food distribution system combining the best of each organizations assets to serve the demanding need in our community. We could not do this without them.”
Pallets on other deliveries this year have carried staple items that will be included in some of the more than 40,000 emergency food boxes distributed by St. Mary’s each month in Arizona, including three- to four-day supplies of canned food, peanut butter, pastas and beans designed for a family of four, augmented additionally by the fruits, vegetables, bread items and other meal-makers for a balanced diet.
Last year, St. Mary’s changed its distribution model to bring food to its partner agencies in Northern Arizona directly from Phoenix, while still maintaining an office in Flagstaff to serve Northern Arizona agencies.
This change has resulted not only in more food being distributed to the region, but also a large increase in the amount of healthy fresh fruits and vegetables, according to Beverly Damore, SMFBA president and CEO.
“The clients we serve now go to our agency partners, where they receive food boxes, fresh produce and protein provided by St. Mary’s Food Bank,” Damore said. “We have increased the amount of fresh fruits and vegetables we distribute by more than 50 percent in the just last three years, and we’ve also increased the amount of high protein foods like, chicken, pork and turkeys during the holidays.
“Those foods need to be distributed quickly. One trip, from our distribution center in Phoenix directly to the agency partners, is the best way to accomplish that. If you are receiving that food, the biggest change is the amount and quality of the food.”
There are also 14 semis like the one Rogers and Rivas drive that can haul up to 80 tons, but food collections at individual stores in Flagstaff are done by Class B trucks.
“It’s a wonderful organization,” Rogers said about SMFBA. “I count myself as blessed to be able to work here. I enjoy going to work every day because of the people we meet and work with. It’s a very positive, uplifting environment.”
The successful link between the two non-profits will likely continue as long as there are there are hungry citizens in Northern Arizona.
“The population we serve straddles the thin line between crisis and vulnerability every day, and together we can serve our clients the most basic human need in stopping hunger,” Saville concluded. FBN
By Betsey Bruner
Flagstaff Business News
Longtime journalist Betsey Bruner operates out of her Words & Images freelance business in downtown Flagstaff.