Donations
Pick up instructions
Sautter's Market
Sautter's is located at 5519 Main St in Sylvania. They provide us with a donation of expired food each Wednesday.
To pick up this donation, arrive behind the building (in the back by the dumpsters). Call the store on their main phone number (419-885-3505) and select option 3 for the produce department. When someone answers, tell them that you are from Food Not Bombs and that you are there to pick up the donation. They will generally indicate that they will bring the donation out; if they don't know about the donation, you could try calling back to reach someone with more information or ask to speak to another member of their department.
Phoenix Earth Food Co-op
The Co-op is located at 1447 W Sylvania Ave. They provide us with donations every Thursday; they prefer that we pick up the donations Thursday morning around 11:30am.
Panera
We are currently signed up for Panera donations on Mondays for the Panera branch at 7115 Central Ave. They offer us boxes of their unsold bread and baked goods shortly before they close for the day at 9pm. To pick this up, arrive at the store at about 8:50pm and say that you are picking up the donation. They will likely be working on boxing it up already, and they'll give it to you when they're finished. We often need someone to pick up this donation.
Country Grains
Delivering or distributing food donations
Bread
The Panera and Country Grains donations can often be a lot of bread and baked goods. Here are some ideas for what to do with it, offered by River:
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Pick out stuff me and my household will eat and put a loaf or 2 in the freezer for later.
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Reach out to friends and make a list of which people would be happy to receive bread, what kinds of stuff they like, and generally what amount they'd like to receive. Take them bread or have them pick up bread from you.
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Bring the bread to Food not Bombs on Thursday, where it can be incorporated into the meal, given away, or composted.
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Make sandwiches IF I have a bunch of surplus ingredients that can be made into sandwich fixings and the time/energy to make sandwiches and either take them to a local org to distro or to the little free pantry at the Collingwood garden.
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Fill the little free pantry with as much bread as it will hold.
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Also, Equality Toledo will sometimes receive and distribute our bread donation; River or John Clark can help reach out to them if that's a route we want to regularly go with excess bread.
Seeking other donations
Other food reclamation
For other food reclamation options, contact one of these members:
- John Clark
- River Abel