Shoppers at SHARE buy food for less and give more to others - Self Help and Resource Exchange

Food and Nutrition, July, 1987 by Lawrence Rudman

Shoppers at SHARE Buy Food For Less And Give More To Others

The trucks roll in formation along the loading docks and idle between the warehouses in the predawn fog. Voices on the intercom crackle orders to the truck drivers and to the workers in the warehouse.

For retired U.S. Army General Jim Dunham and his corps of 360 volunteers, it's D-Day, distribution day, at the SHARE food warehouse in Chicago. Before nightfall, more than 500,000 pounds of fresh produce and frozen meats will be transported by trucks to 200 Chicago-area churches and aggencies and into the kitchens of 10,000 people.

Dunham, an ordained deacon in Chicago's Catholic Archdiocese, oversees the operation of SHARE--Self Help and Resource Exchange--an unusual private food help program. The idea is this: If you're willing to work, you can buy food at a discount and contribute to your community at the same time.

Open to anyone--there are no income restrictions--SHARE gives local residents the opportunity to purchase, on a once-a-month basis, a nourishing well-balanced food package worth $35 to $45 dollars. They pay $14 and commit 3 hours of time to volunteer service. Participants may pay for the food package with food stamps.

Last year, more than 110,000 families bought SHARE food packages and, together, contributed more than 382,882 volunteer hours of service.

Operating in several cities

Established in San Diego in 1983 by former Chicago businessman Carl Shelton with seed money from the San Diego Catholic Diocese, SHARE has expanded nationwide to Phoenix; Minneapolis /St. Paul; Milwaukee; Philadelphia; New York City; Newark, New Jersey; Peoria, Illinois; and Christiansburg, Virginia.

Shelton, also a Catholic deacon, introduced his friend Jim Dunham to SHARE, who then proposed a SHARE program to the Chicago Archdiocese in 1984.

Dunham recruited two other deacons, Joshua Alves, a retired labor relations manager with Blue Cross, and former truck driver and United Parcel Service warehousing expert Phillip Disparte.

"With start-up grants from private manufacturers and a $90,000 line of credit from the Archdiocese, we leased a warehouse,' says Dunham.

"Our first month's distribution was 2,600 food packages. We tripled that the next month.'

With no experience in dealing with food processors and food growers, Dunham says at first he operated "by guess and by God.' Today, after 2 years and almost 1 million people served, Dunham has helped build a national network of food buyers and growers.

Dunham explains that some products are commercial overruns. Others, like pasta shells, may be specially manufactured for SHARE.

Sometimes, as Dunham explained in SHARE's monthly newsletter, "a producer is trying to break into an untapped market with a new product and may regard SHARE as a way to gain consumer recognition and acceptance' and offer the product at a low introductory cost to SHARE.

"We don't accept any donated foods,' says Dunham. "It's important that people know this is not charity. We also don't want to compete for free food that should go to the food charities.'

Packages contain variety of foods

The packages contain a variety of foods. February's food package, for example, contained Italian sausage, chicken leg quarters, ground beef patties, ham hash, grapefruit, apples, carrots, broccoli, lettuce, canned pumpkin, rice, potatoes, corn tortillas, taco starter, and kiwi fruit.

"It's enough food to feed a family of four for a week,' says Dunham.

Participant satisfaction with the food packages runs high--last month a survey showed a 97-percent satisfaction level. Occasionally, however, a product will cause some confusion.

One complaint concerned potatoes which when boiled turned green on the inside. Actually, they were not potatoes at all. "In our next newsletter, we cautioned about boiling the kiwi fruit,' Dunham says.

From his glassed-in warehouse command post, Dunham watches volunteers load fresh carrots onto a pallet. Everyone who buys a monthly food package also agrees to volunteer 3 hours doing some type of community service. Many decide to fulfill their commitment working at the warehouse on distribution day or at another local agency.

Volunteers are glad to help

Tony Ortiz works the night shift at a local General Electric plant. He purchases a food package every month and volunteers at the SHARE warehouse and the Latino Cultural Center where the food packages are distributed in his neighborhood. He is not a newcomer to volunteering.

"I like to help, always have,' he says. "I volunteer at the high school, help out at lunchtime. I enjoy this.'

So does Elvira Hopkins, who is busy loading bags of oranges. A mother of eight children, three still at home, she says the good food is just part of the reason she likes the SHARE idea.

"I really enjoy coming here and meeting people. I've made a lot of friends working and sharing with other people here,' she says.

John Morelock says that although he's retired, he's not tired. A regular volunteer at a Hines Veterans Hospital, he buys three packages of SHARE food a month for himself, his son, and a friend.