Boise Sunrise and the Idaho Foodbank in Collaboration
On a sunny summer Saturday morning, 12 Boise Sunrise Rotarians and seven family members and friends gathered at the Idaho Foodbank (IFB) to sort recently arrived food into family size portions. The theme for that day was to address a large pallet of apples. The photos attached below show you the Boise Sunrise crew at IFB that morning. The project wrapped up in a delightful way with popsicles in the IFB parking lot after the work was completed! Volunteer work continues to be needed at IFB and we feel that this is an ideal way for Rotary to leave it better than we found it.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
The Idaho Foodbank occupies a unique position in the value chain by ensuring that food pantries and various school and church food programs receive the necessary foodstuffs to serve their clients. IFB has recently moved to a new facility in Meridian due to the generosity of Jacksons Food Stores. This move tripled their square footage and included storage racks and a very large refrigeration and frozen food storage already in place.
IFB has facilities in Meridian, Pocatello, and Lewiston. They have 465 partners to distribute food all across Idaho. They offer three shifts a day, five days a week for volunteers to do a variety of tasks to make this business model work. Without all of these volunteers, Sydney Reid of IFB estimates that they would need to hire ~28 full time employees to do the food sorting and other activities associated with serving the food insecure citizens of Idaho.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
The Boise Sunrise Rotarians are proud supporters of the excellent work that IFB does and that was also manifested recently when we were able to deliver a check from our monthly “center of the table” free-will donations from our Rotary club members. We are fortunate to have such a strong partnership with IFB and we are exploring other avenues of service, in partnership with IFB, to further support the community in the state we call home.