13:20 – We drove over to the LDS Family Home Storage Center this morning, where we picked up 24 #10 cans each of flour, macaroni, dry milk, potato flakes, rice, spaghetti, and sugar–28 cases altogether–along with one foil pouch each of their hot cocoa mix, flavored drink mix, and pancake mix. The total was 615.7 pounds of food for $708.45, or $1.15/pound. That’s 24 person-months’ or two person-years’ worth of dry goods at just under 26 pounds per month, a good foundation.
Of course, that’s just the dry stuff. As Barbara pointed out, with 150 pounds of macaroni and spaghetti, we’d better buy a bunch of sauce at Costco and Amazon Pantry. I’ve already been doing that, and will continue to stock up on soups, sauces, canned meats, canned fruits and vegetables, baked beans, and so on.
The LDS store was staffed by Elder and Sister Lockett, a nice older couple. They gave us a tour of the facility, which is really a warehouse with tons and tons of food on industrial steel shelving. They told us that 60% of their customers are not LDS members, and that many of their customers actually use this food routinely, as do they. In addition to selling food to all comers, the site provides food and other grocery items at no cost to LDS members who are down on their luck. They emphasized that it wasn’t welfare or charity; the recipients were expected to work at the center or other LDS facilities in return for the groceries.
We just finished setting up the steel shelving unit, which will make it easy to rotate old stuff out the front and new stuff in the back. We loaded everything on the shelves. It’s surprising how little space it takes to store 168+ #10 cans.