good evening i'm a goldstein and welcome to another edition of focus on tonight my guest is julie kenner who is the director and recipient relations and community affairs at table to table i'll be talking more about what table to table is and how they have grown over the years and who they reach a little bit the first i want to welcome julie julie thank you for coming on the show tonight thank you so much for having me this is really an experience and thank you for giving me an opportunity to speak about table to table that's good i know the audience is looking forward to hearing to what you have to say and i will get to that first i think i want to let everybody know a little bit about you and julie's been with table to table since the very beginning volunteering with events and special projects her background in restaurants grocery stores and events gave her an understanding of what could be donated and by whom after having children julie was offered a position with table to table as the director of recipient relations and community fairs and for the last eleven years julie has worked in all aspects of table to table from the food donations to the agencies to the events and so before we start the show i just want to make one note i would be remiss if i didn't do this last sunday october fifteenth well it was sunday about total fifteenth of two thousand for you so so julie could you start off first press and what is table to table absolutely table to table is a not for profit food rescue organization so every day we've got five refrigerated trucks out on the road picking up food that would be we have wonderful donors we have grocery stores and catering facilities restaurants and food purveyors that are on a shift our drivers all have you know a route that they follow each day and they will go and pick up and then they have the same route going to our recipient agencies and they deliver everything that day so grocery stores can facilities they know exactly when we're coming they know what we expect and we move on from there ok so basically there are certain times of day that you pick up the various locations absolutely absolutely they know you know we know when the docs will close we know you know when they're there we know you know we know when it's lunch time and when to avoid restaurants things like that but yeah the they're always within a window and and they know when to expect us one of those i want to ask you is i'm fascinated because a lot of times you go into a grocery store or to a restaurant and i was wondered how much how do they know how much to order  challenge it's a challenge that our grocery stores and our restaurants face every day you know how much we always tease that when there's a storm coming or when something is coming you know there's the comedian that says we've got to get the bread in the milk and it's true we go to the grocery stores and they're emptied we will sometimes things back to exactly it's funny but you know they don't know how much to order on a given day and so there is leftovers a lot of the stores will take produce and turn it into their prepared food section you know they'll be able to reuse some of it but a lot of it doesn't get used so before we came along these items were just being tossed out so we're able to go in and with restaurants we we don't honestly have a huge amount of because quite frankly if they miss order that much then they're not going to be successful so we work with with restaurants in different ways but if they have a big party or a big event that they're able to do we won't take the things that were on the tables if it was on a buffet we can't take that but if it was the extra you know platter of chicken that was in the refrigerator in the back we absolutely can take that ok is there life span for the food as for your sure those the items in the grocery store have expiration dates on them and we all know those dates are little lucy goosey but we do go by the dates so we say we can pick up something that expires today because in ninety nine percent of the cases are recipient agencies are using that tonight for dinner or tomorrow morning for breakfast in restaurants the chefs there they know what they're doing you know we are very relying on them to know exactly what what they should and shouldn't be donating our drivers are also served safe trained so that means they're familiar with temperatures they're familiar with the safety of food and that's why our trucks are refrigerated we take this very seriously you know we don't want anyone to get sick our drivers have temperature guns that they can aim it's like a laser gun almost and they can aim it at the product to make sure that it's been you know kept at a safe temperature so really we work hard to keep the supper children's agencies afterschool programs senior center senior homes veterans programs any group that is feeding the hungry we do not delivered individuals but we do deliver to large areas we also have every thursday it's where i'm headed after today we go to the mobile market in newark in the ironbound we set up with the help of some wonderful donors and and wonderful financial donors we are able to set up sort of a mobile market and we set up tents and tables and we have volunteers in the neighborhood and we deliver sixteen pallets of food that's a huge amount of food and it goes by the end of the day it is all gone so we're just in northern new jersey for right now but we always say that went once we solve the hunger problem those four counties will stretch out further south and that's to go out of business from within that it's great yeah that that is definitely our goal to go so can you can you talk about how many families and even cities that you serve in each of those counties absolutely you know i don't know off a tough my hand across my head but i do know we're over about three hundred thousand people that we're serving throughout the four  we go where the need is we do have agencies in bergen county people always amazed by that for years we deliver to the press kill food pantry we go to children's aid and family services their group homes we're in hackensack so we are in bergen county delivering two it's it's it's incredible to me how i can be in one of the wealthiest neighborhoods and then ten minutes later i can be in one of the poorest in new jersey it's it's overwhelming so we do we stand out as much as we can and this year will actually deliver enough meals or pick up and deliver enough meals to make about eighteen million meals really yeah incredible that would have been thrown away yeah it's insane it's an insane number  more people that have three jobs two and three jobs or more grandparents that are taking care of their grandchildren than i've ever seen before in the bio it said i've been with table table since the very beginning and and part of my job is to deliver part of my job is to inspect the recipient agencies and really get to know the people who are delivering to and it just amazes me every day how hard these people are working and they just can't make ends meet the you know basically was about where the food goes how do you get your funding to support all this absolutely we we actually work very hard for our funding we are privately funded so we ask a lot we beg a lot but  we do not ask or accept government funding which i think makes us very different than most most charities we truly believe that we take care of ourselves and we take care of our own and we should be serving the people in the community on our own so everything we do between events and fundraisers anything we can get from anywhere we we work very hard to get that ok and you have got main recipients of donors or is your bones yours  organization we have some we do have a quarter group of volunteers that many of them have been with us for years and they really work on the events they get auction items they come to the events they run the front door the tickets whatever  and we are extremely grateful for that because really they really take the chunk of events and they work with us as far as employees we are very small we have only about five six people in the office on a given day and we  increase was couple years absolutely just the mobile market alone i think is a great example three years ago or three summers ago we approached the i c c which is the ironbound community corporation it's a wonderful group that works out of the iron bound and ring and we needed a partner because we couldn't just go inside of the local market in a parking lot you know so we needed a partner and we asked them to partner with us and provide volunteer years and give us the time you know allow us to come onto their property and when we did we originally approached them we thought maybe one hundred to one hundred fifty people would come to the market every thursday and pick up food and this year we're reaching between six and seven hundred families so it's it's grown you know in a way that we didn't expect we're thrilled to be able to do it but we certainly didn't expect it but you also coordinate with other agencies throughout the state who provide services maybe in different counties than you do we can although we we really kind of stick to our own area so we can work with the other agencies there are other agencies that we might refer others to if someone calls us from  wrong way or you know some other area will say oh you know we don't come here but we're happy to refer you and absolutely we do you do ok is there a web site that people go to absolutely just and yes yes we are unique you know to other food restaurants that that exists i think a couple of things that i've touched on the not taking government funding i think that's a really unique struggle almost that we have but it is truly something that we believe and we really do need to take care of our own communities need us and and that's it you know we can't risk having government funding pulled away from a surge or you know we've seen so many places that have closed that that can small but so mighty and then also that we are fresh the food that we're delivering to these places while peanut butter and pasta are a wonderful staple on our trucks you're going to see produce and dairy and meat you're going to see items that they don't see on a normal basis and you deliver mostly for dinners or for you know anything anything it's whatever we get a lot of time agencies will calls and say well we're having the snack program and i'm like yeah i get what you get i'm not really sure i think that would be a good social study and i think you know that would be some kind of study but i think that a lot of times i know in of couple of the districts that we deliver to a lot of the parents are incarcerated or they just you know the fathers have left the families or for whatever reason i think it's impressive that these grandparents have been able to step up these grandmothers you see there's this one grandmother in paterson that has six grandchildren and she takes care of all of them and it's just it just amazes me you know i see my own parents and i think oh my gosh how you know i that's just overwhelming to me but it's time yeah that would be an interesting study to see exactly why that's happening  with sounds like you're you're delivering more food to more agencies over the period of eleven years since you first heard working with it yes it will whose idea was it come up with the concept of of table to table and that was how i was a founded and you know other develop were with another group share our strength and there was a group of us that fund raised for share strength the national incredible charity share strength and we went to them and said we wanted to do more for northern new jersey we wanted to do  we want to do the more money back we wanted to do with city harvest is you know we want to start collecting food and i'm sure strength really said you know that's not what we do but go you know do do what you need to do and so with the help of some incredible donors we founded table to table and we actually did approach city harvest first and said do you want to come over the bridge and they said we have our hands full but they did become like sister to us they gave us a board member they really helped to stablish ourself and you know they had years of experience beyond us and so they were able to kind of teach us some things and then we've just kind of moved on from there but claire definitely was our inspiration and our leader for many many there to take care of them you know we just will period ok yeah there's you know yes if i say so that's it i you know i do and i again on the mobile market when we approached them they the ironbound we weren't in the ironbound at all the way newark works is they have several different wards and we were all over the south where the north where the central where the the west ward we were not in the east ward which is the ironbound and no one ever really seemed to connect with us we never we just were never there and that really bothered me because i could see the need i i could see the streets i could see that there was a need and when we approached the and they basically were concerned that we were going to drop in and leave and they wanted someone who was going to make a commitment and at one point we weren't sure that we were going to continue on the commitment we just didn't know if we would have the funding or we didn't know if would have the food and we all agreed that that just was not acceptable and we did everything we could and i think we're more stable you know i think that we're to a point now where we know that this is something that is going to absolutely continue no matter what so that's how can you continuously you know you know the restaurants and supermarkets et cetera to maintain that steady delivery of services in the first cutting back in certain areas absolutely it's hard it's definitely hard to i think we're constantly looking you know we're constantly asking for more and if a supermarket falls off or for restaurant falls off or if or if a purveyor just simply can't give anymore you know maybe they are you know maybe they do order perfection you know then then we're always asking there's we're always kind of seeking elsewhere we have anthony mathy is our food finder and he is out there every day in grocery stores talking to people and and really seeing exactly where the waste is and how we can either get the waste you know really really work with them to to get the right food out of the store or out of the business ok he must be doing a good job because he is s watching the program tonight and i realize you know hunger such a big issue in our society right now that the child no parent no grandparent should have is the way to go hungry but yet no one sees everyone sees the action of the social agency but no one sees the behind the scenes player who gets the food to you know the agencies or whatever location it's being served so how can an individual who wants to assist or help how what can someone do to help to help locally to help table to table there's a couple of things always can volunteer at the mobile market you can always do food drives locally  while we say you know we will never you know we don't deliver peanut butter and pasta which is like a typical staple for a food drive sometimes some of the schools would do a fresh food drive one of our schools did a rainbow drive in each class had a different color  to collect i thought that was kind of fun but mostly it is financial donations that help us survive we do what we do for less than ten cents a meal again it's based on you know our our staffing and and that we pick up the food for free we deliver the food for free so less than ten cents will get a meal into someone's hands that's that's an incredible thing if you if you have five dollars and you know it's fifty meals that you're donating donation of five dollars that's pretty crazy that's better than to get a taco bell but i think you get anywhere but that is definitely for us the main the main goal right now we have a program running called bag a lunch help a bunch and we ask that schools and companies donate with their would have spent on lunch one day that's it and and that goes far it goes really far with us  otherwise what something that food waste for me is sort of something that i'm personally passionate about there was a late night talk show hosts that focused on food waste he does a great monologue on it little vulgar did the part for my kids but but one of the things he said this is that people waste at least twenty five percent of the groceries that come into their home so it's like you're walking out with four bags of groceries and you drop one in the parking lot right that's unacceptable and we just can't do that anymore one of the kids at our house their favorite day is when they come home and say what's for dinner and i say whatever's in their fridge or it were clean nothing refrigerated night and they might eat carrots with pam burger with you know and we just drank whatever we can because you just you know the food waste is such such a problem so that's something that you know you can do anyone can do just to know that you know trying not to get that food waste and really trying to work on what you're eating and  the need is there we need we need to and we need to move on but the problem you know just getting the food it's getting the donors and getting the food every day just in our four counties i get at least two to three phone calls a day from churches and agencies that are looking for food so we can't possibly serve them all at this point so just getting the food it's that's that's the only way that we're going to be able to move on and i know this may be  more on the political side and but what can each of the county governments and the counties that you work and i know there are priorities for everybody of course understandably why it since you're basically taken care of are huge social need why can each could a county government in which you're located and then you know put aside something as part of their annual budget to go to offset your operational costs because basically you're feeding the population of the county sure  you know i think that we just i i think that we personally just don't want to ask for that i truly and i said it but i truly truly believe that we need to take care of ourselves and the i think the ironbound is a great example because they really take care of each other when you come to the mobile market you see everyone helping each other down the street and carrying their groceries and it's the simple things but i think that if we all work together there's  another place in newark on the south ward clear away baptist and she has not only opened a food pantry and has been able to feed a tremendous amount of people in the neighborhood but she starts neighborhood programs she  has trucks come take blood pressure and cholesterol and and she's trying to get the entire neighborhood involved and they are and and she says that over the years she has seen more and more people coming out and helping each other they're not just looking behind the blinds anymore it's other you know they're really coming out and helping and i think it's the same way with taking or not taking government funding or is that we are we're working to help each other a pastor at a nother church in newark once told me that he's not only feeding of the county tax every pay as i personally would have no problem no i want to open my tax bill that where whatever whatever i paid was going to help people who didn't who are hungry yeah you know or support those organizations who are helping people you know on a daily basis so that they're not going hungry at night sure because there's nothing worse than that because it contributes to poverty it contributes to that and absolutely it contributes to you know not job growth stone job growth yeah so it would be nice if and was listening in the legislature out there to sponsor a bill to make sure that a portion of the county tax or whatever taxes raised on the property taxes could go to those organizations who are doing yeoman's job of providing the support needed for those who are hungry are there and making sure that those social agencies get the food so they can they can do it i think you'd be doing yourself a great job or maybe the next governor to take that up regardless of whether or not we want to get  policy we define want to get into the human kindness of it all and just our ethical obligation as a society even those who are in need so before we leave i just thought maybe if there's anything we didn't cover maybe you could you know talk about it now  to talk about any projects or things we covered everything yeah again go on our web site table to table dot org our facebook page instagram and twitter we have some wonderful people working on those pages and and it keeps you up to date on everything that we're doing now be great the great thank you it's great talking to you tonight thank you so much it was a pleasure was great having your hopefully those who are watching hopefully if you get the urge to volunteer i'm sure you can contact julia table table there or org and also if you have a real desire to help those who are in need and who go hungry every night and help those organizations who are trying every day to meet that need i'm sure to get your checkbook and write a check and i'm sure if you contact table table dot org they will be more than happy to work with you in whatever type of sponsorship that you wish to give on a daily basis for the great work that they're doing so with that said hopefully  you enjoy the show tonight we have more guests coming on in the weeks to follow but for tonight i'm lou goldstein i thank you for watching have a good night stay focused stay healthy stay active and i'll see you next week i'm focus