My internship was at a food bank here in the Inland Empire. This organization collects both local and nationally donated foods from a variety of sources. The donations are processed through their warehouse and then distributed to a variety of organizations (such as shelters, youth homes, soup kitchens, etc.) that share similar goals of helping those in need. This organization is functional due to their efficient structure.

The first important aspect is the staff and volunteers. Volunteers and staff are used as basically labor. It’s not intensive,  but they need as many hands as possible to pack boxes so the organization can stay efficient.There is a very relaxed hierarchy within the warehouse, everyone’s basically performing similar tasks. They emphasize a team dynamic

Funding is also vital to this organization. It costs the organization money to transport and store the food that they collect. Corporate sponsors play a huge role in financial assistance. Feeding America and United Way are the two main partners that provide financial donations.They also get revenue from what they call a shared maintenance contribution.  Some members told me corporate donations allow them to waive handling fees for the organizations they are providing to. While others told me they did have to pay. If you look at the application forms online, there is a detailed section of the contract regarding these fees. Either way, someone pays for their services. Local financial donations are also collected but they have a much smaller impact on the finances.

In order for an organization to become aligned with food bank and receive food, they must go through an application process.  The application is about twelve pages long detailing the steps an organization needs to take and paperwork to be filled out. It serves as a contract between the two parties as it outlines expectations and rules that are to be followed to receive food.

All of these structural aspects affects how well they live up to their goals and mission statement. This organization is efficient and successful in their goals. They provide food to organizations around the county and play an important role in feeding hundreds of people year around since 1980. But there are some downfalls to the type of assistance they offer when considering the bigger picture of poverty.

Having a large pool of donors is great for quantity but not for quality.  Most common items were snack foods, condiments and cereal that had little to no nutritional value and many of the donations are also either already expired or nearing expiration. There were some organic and gluten free items but they were still snack foods.

This organizations plays a huge role in feeding those in need and they do great work on the micro scale. They do not attack the issues on a structural level. It is a more reactionary type of assistance. This food bank will not achieve their mission of ending hunger within their function and structure as an organization. Providing someone with food enables individuals to survive while on the street or in hard times but not a way for any individual to escape their situations.