Food For Families Home Deliveries

Manna Food Center’s Community Food Rescue (CFR) program has stepped up during the COVID-19 pandemic by providing home deliveries of food to people who should not be going out. Thanks to CFR’s volunteer food runners, more than 250 families have received home deliveries of vital food since March 31st. We started home deliveries with Stay Put Packs of shelf-stable food to last 7-12 days.

Manna offers home deliveries in response to COVID-19, thanks to CFR food runners.

We are now expanding to include fresh produce and frozen meat so that the home delivery boxes will be the same as Manna’s Food for Families pick-up boxes. Due to the added complexity of delivering perishable food, we have added new procedures.

CFR food runners will have minimal contact with a Manna staff person when picking up food; each person will follow Manna’s COVID-19 safety protocols. You will have no contact when delivering food. Do not accept food runs if you are not comfortable with this level of contact.

Here are the steps for accepting and completing home delivery of Food for Families

 You will receive email notices about available food runs. Each notice will be for either a single delivery or a cluster of a few food runs.  Please carefully review all the information, including date, time, location(s), number of locations and minimum vehicle size before accepting the food run.

• If you can accept the requirements of the run, feel free to claim it on ChowMatch. Once the run is claimed, other volunteers will be blocked and the run will no longer be listed.
• Please be patient if you don’t get to do a run right away! We anticipate that the Food For Families food runs will increase in the coming weeks.
• You will receive a confirmation email with the name, address and phone number of each recipient, and the location of the Manna site where you will pick up the food. Manna participant’s  phone number is listed under “Office phone”.

Food For Families consists of one taped box of shelf stable food, one closed produce box, and one bag of frozen meat.

On the day before the food run, before 7pm, please

• Call your participants to let them know that a delivery will be coming.
• Use this short script and if needed, text it in another language (only works if participant provided a cell phone number). 

On the day of the food run, please

• ensure that you can follow all of the safety requirements (hand sanitizer, face covering and optional single-use gloves). 
• remember to take the location information and your cell phone. Use a clean vehicle. Even though you will transport perishable food, you won’t need special handling materials since your food run should last less than two hours. If you deliver multiple orders lasting longer than two hours, contact Cheryl@communityfoodrescue.org to discuss special handling options.
• Drive to the designated Manna location for pick up.

Food for Families (FFF) consists of 1 box of shelf-stable food; 1 box of fresh produce/perishables; and 1 bag of frozen meat (when available). If a special diet is listed on instructions, ask Manna staff to retrieve those components. Make sure to take the other components listed on instructions.

Manna Warehouse 9311 Gaither Road, Gaithersburg

Park at Manna parking lot. Ring the bell and front desk staff will let you in. Give staff your name and names of participants you are picking up for. Wait in the lobby area, while staff retrieves your food boxes. Use a cart to transport items to your vehicle; return cart.

Manna Marketplace 12301 Old Columbia Pike, Silver Spring

Park near the Tech Rd. side of the building.

On Tuesdays and Fridays: Enter the Manna Market through the door just to the left of the main entrance to 12301 facing Old Columbia Pike. The door will be open. When you arrive, ask for Judy or Joel. On the white lockers, print your name legibly next to each Manna participant you will deliver to.  Let staff know you are with CFR and how many orders you are picking up, including any special diets. Joel and staff will bring your orders on a hand truck for you to take out to your vehicle. If you need to make additional trips come back through the door you exited, and a staff person will let you in and provide you with the additional orders. Please return the cart through that same exit door. Do not come between noon-1pm during staff lunch break. 

On Mondays, Wednesdays and Thursdays: This is self-serve in the Manna Marketplace when marketplace is closed. When facing main entrance of the office building, walk to your left and enter Manna’s marketplace (through an exit door) near the corner of the building (see photo).

On Mon, Wed, and Thurs. food runners will self-serve by entering Manna’s marketplace through this door.

Use door code given in your instruction sheet. As soon as you walk in look for materials on the white lockers.  Sign in by printing your name legibly next to each participant you will deliver to. The sign in sheet may list food items available that day. Look for the glass cooler door just past those white lockers.  The freezer is against the far wall to the right of the cooler and the closed boxes are to the right of that under the BREAD sign. 

Take one taped box of shelf-stable food; one closed box of produce from  glass door cooler, and one bag of frozen meat (if available) from glass door freezer. 

Special Diets (SD)-If your instruction sheet lists a participant’s special diet, their name will be listed on one of the boxes. Look at the label for these symbols: C=shelf-stable food; O=produce box; M=meat. The label will indicate which other boxes/bag to include. A slash through C, O, or M means do not take that box or bag.

Special diet box lists the participants last name and which other components to get. A slash through C, O, or M means do not take that box or bag.

At both Manna locations:

Please take and keep these supplies for your food runs: sharpie pen, CFR cap, hand sanitizer, washable mask (while supplies last).

• For Food For Families, take a Sharpie pen, write the current date and time on the box sticker (for food time/temperature control) at the time of delivery. Keep this pen for all future food runs.
• If you are a new CFR food runner, please also take a red CFR cap to wear on runs.
• While supplies last, feel free to take a small bottle of hand sanitizer and washable mask to keep. Take an extra mask to include in your delivery(ies).
• Upon leaving Manna, you may want to use ChowMatch’s routing feature (with Google Maps) to follow the best route to each of your destinations accounting for real time traffic conditions. Login to your ChowMatch account on your phone>Volunteer>My Active Food Runs>click Route for current day. Choose Dropoff. For Start, choose “current”. Choose all the locations in your cluster for that day. For End, choose: House.
• Remember, this is a no-contact delivery for your and the Manna participant’s safety. Write delivery date and time on the box. Drop where instructed, ring the bell or knock on door, and go. You may arrange to wait until you get buzzed into an apartment building and deliver to an apartment door, but do not go in or have contact with the participant.
• As soon as you have delivered the order, call the participant. Identify yourself as a Manna volunteer who has delivered food. Remind them to properly store food in the refrigerator or freezer within two hours of the time noted on the box. Use this short script or text in another language if needed (only works if participant provided a cell phone number).
• If possible, wait in your vehicle or at a safe distance to see if someone retrieves boxes. If you are unable to make contact with the participant by phone or visual, leave the food anyway and note unable to contact participant in the ChowMatch Complete Status comments (see below).
• As soon as you have completed all the food runs, please complete status of each location in ChowMatch by mobile app or computer. Login to your ChowMatch account. Volunteer>My Active or Past Food Runs> click the blue Complete Status button and fill out the form. This replaces the paper Food Run Tracking Form that we previously used (saves time and paper!). Add any notes about the delivery process especially if you were unable to make phone or visual contact with the participant after delivery.
• If you have any questions or issues that come up before, during or after your run, please contact me: Cheryl Kollin, CFR Program Director, cheryl@communityfoodrescue.org 240-268-2502.

CFR Food Runs from Donor businesses to Food Assistance Organizations

CFR Food Runners will also receive email notices for our typical food runs– from donor food businesses to non-profit food assistance agencies.

Note whether these are one-time runs or regular (weekly, bi-weekly, monthly etc.) runs. You may accept regular runs either one time, or if you can, on an on-going basis. Food runners must adhere to our COVID-19 safety protocols. You can find them here.

Thanks so much for being a CFR food runner so that together we can feed more and waste less!