One Haines store’s misfortune became the Salvation Army’s gain this week. An accidental overflow of milk at a local grocery store made its way to the non-profit’s monthly food program.
Following a shipping error that left Oleruds market with thousands of extra half-pint cartons of milk, there was a scramble by the owner to move the excess at extremely discounted prices before it spoiled. The Haines Salvation Army was one organization to benefit. Salvation Army Captains Kevin and Serina Woods gathered a substantial amount of the small cartons.
Kevin Woods says they were able to distribute them to the community.
Woods: “picked up I think 10, 10, or 12 cases of it. Milk crates full of the little small school-sized ones and gave it all away part of it in town here and then part of it out of mosquito lake. I think I took eight cases of it out to mosquito lake and then the rest of it we gateway here in town.”
Woods says the timing of the discounted milk lined up perfectly with the Salvation Army’s monthly commodities giveaway.
Woods: “Normally it’s on the last Thursday of the month, but this month, we had to bump it up a week because our shipping came in we had a bunch of frozen stuff that came in and I didn’t have freezer space for it. And it’s commodities that we get from the Alaska Food Bank in Anchorage and it’s called TEFAP. It’s that USDA food in other places it’s USDA commodity food years ago it used to be like the government surplus cheese and peanut butter and stuff like that you know that you used to get years ago still given that stuff out it’s changed a little bit you don’t get the government surplus cheese and stuff like that as much anymore. But we get that stuff shipped to us from Anchorage and we give that out the last Thursday of every month and we do about 75 bags we do about 30 or 35 here in town and then we do about the same amount out in collect one and mosquito lake I deliver those out there the folks here in town they come to to the Salvation Army here and pick those up and the ones out at Klukwan mosquito lake I deliver to the fire department out there and they meet me there.”
The free food, including the milk this month, includes a healthy variety for families that might be struggling to reach their dietary needs. The amount of food in each giveaway is based on family size.
Woods: “yeah, nothing goes to waste, you know?” “So if there’s, you know, if there’s one to four, I think in a household, my wife, my wife does the paperwork on that, but I think it’s one to four and a household, they get one bag if it’s over four and a household, then they can get they can have two bags, you know, and then it kind of goes up from there.”
Woods and his wife Serena have been running the Salvation Army food program in Haines for nearly eight years, something that they take pride in.
Woods: “Oh, man, I wake up every day and look forward to what I do.” “and like I said, I take pride in our food boxes and all that. And when we got here it was hard because there wasn’t a whole lot of food, you know, and it was they were really struggling and all that and because of my experience with the big food banks down in California, I knew what to do and I knew who to ask and I knew what buttons to push and whose desk to jump up and down on and so it wasn’t very long and our shelf started filling up in the connections with the food banks over in Anchorage and stuff started happening, you know, and that’s what I wanted because we don’t have a whole lot of money here in Haines”
Families interested in the monthly commodity giveaway can fill out a simple form at the Salvation Army. For those needing help with food in between the commodity giveaways, there are small food boxes available at the Salvation Army during the week.
