109th Week Update - Miles Neighborhood Food Collection Project

Hi Folks

Not Much Time At All

Most Mondays the food laden shopping carts are weighed and hurried off the scales to the volunteers sorting at the other end of the warehouse. Last Monday the four carts were just parked near the scales in a nice neat row. When I got home I still had that image of those heaping food carts in my mind and I thought, “Boy, did that look like a lot of food.”

Normally I keep all of the tallies separate—Miles Neighborhood, Miles School, Axis Food Mart, Rincon Market and Sunflower Market—but I became curious about the amount of time it took to gather all of that food so I jotted down what we do and when.

Miles Neighborhood – Sunday, 11:30 – 2:30 with a 45-minute lunch. Barbara, Kym and Lenny spent 60 minutes combined and just walk their routes.

Miles School – Friday, 2 – 3, with 6 minutes drive time.

Rincon Market – Saturday, 9:15 or so – 12 noon with 40 minutes drive time.

Sunflower Market – Wednesday, 3 – 6 with 60 minutes drive time.

Axis Food Mart – Monday, 15 minutes at most with 4 minutes drive time.

Community Food Bank – Monday, 2 – 2:30 with 40 minutes drive time.

All toll we spend 13 hours and 15 minutes a week collecting food.

Last week we collected— counting everybody—574 lbs. of food. This week the combined total was 454 lbs. of food.

One Can A Week has to be the easiest and most productive job I have ever had. And so much good is coming out of all of our efforts.




Ten-year-old Margaret Amshay of

Farmington Hills, MI is a fifth-grader

with her own One Can A Week program.

  Kids Don't Kid About Caring
I love email for lots of reasons but mostly the surprises I receive now and again. This morning I opened an email from…well, I’ll let you find out the same way I did.

Hi Peter,
My name is Ann Amshay, and I wanted to let you know that your program is taking roots in Michigan. We learned about your program when we were visiting Lisa (Hepner), and my daughter started it in our neighborhood this summer. We are now getting some publicity and hoping to spread it to other neighborhoods here. Thought you would like to know that your great idea is growing!

Ann also sent me a link to a wonderful story about Margaret’s One Can A Week program in Southeastern Michigan. She lives in Farmington Hills which is not too far from Detroit so you know Margaret is trying to help a lot of hungry families.

By the way, here’s a link to the gritty and provocative Chrysler Super Bowl commercial that captures the spirit of the folks who live in Southeastern Michigan like Margaret and her mom.

Nobody’s Watching and That’s a Good Thing
Saturday at the Rincon Market started very early because I had to work at the Axis Food Mart from 8 – 10 am. Since I can’t be two places at once, I set up the One Can A Week display table at 7:30, tossed a dollar and a few coins in the donation plate and left. When I returned about 10:15, the donation plate had four more dollars in it along with a mound of change.

To tell you the truth, when I put the unguarded dollar in the donation plate I thought … hmm, you know what I thought … but I am so glad I was disappointed.

Beanies and Bananas
The cold snap apparently motivated the Knitting Lady in the Library to turn out a dozen or so colorful beanies. Not sure if people will wear them since our Tucson weather has returned, but they sure kept the cereal boxes toasty.

We collected a total of 200 lbs. of food, including 20 lbs. of produce and 8 lbs. from The Axis Food Mart. The money we donated amounted to $51.00 … a $25.00 check and $26.00 in cash.

See you Sunday,

Peter