1. How often can I visit an essentials pantry?
2. Why does my shopping list change every time I visit the pantry?
3. Why isn’t [____] on my shopping list?
4. How come my neighbor got [____] and I didn’t?
5. Can I swap [____] for two of [____]?
6. But I really need [___]...
7. What happens if you’re out of a product I need?
8. How did you define the product lifespans?
9. Where do you get the products?
1. How often can I visit an essentials pantry?
All of the PEPartnership Alliance
agencies allow you to visit as often as
you need to, as many times as you
need to. However, some products may not be
available every time you visit. The
products we carry are distributed on
the basis of product function, and how long
it will stay on the shelf in a particular
household.
We’ve set things up this way so that
when we’re out of a product, you
don’t have to wait a set length of time
before you can come back again, or visit another
pantry. We want to give you the
maximum flexibility to get what you
need, while ensuring that all of the
PEPartnership Alliance agencies know
that they’re seeing fair use of their
resources.
2. Why does my shopping list change every time I visit the pantry?
It sometimes seems that every product
on our shelves has a different usable
lifespan; and that’s even before we get
into how the lifespan changes with
family size. Rather than restricting you
to visits only X number of days, we
decided to let you visit as often as you
needed to in order to get the products
you need – but to control distribution
by product lifespan.
Your shopping list is calculated by
the PEPbase software that we use:
- What products your household
needs as defined by who’s in
your household: how many
adult males/females, how many
teenage males/females, how
many youth, how many infants;
- Minus any products that your
household has received within
the defined lifespan of those
products
- Minus any products that we
don’t have on our shelves that
day.
The shopping list for every visit you
make here is recalculated at the time of
that visit, based on previous shopping
trips.
3. Why isn’t [____] on my shopping list?
Basically, you won’t see a product if
(a) you received it within the defined
product lifespan, or (b) your family
isn’t eligible for the product. Since
we’re working with only about one-
fourth the funding we really need to
meet this need area, we have to be
sure that we distribute things as fairly
as possible – and so we rely on the
definition of how long a product
should last a family of your size. And
unfortunately, we don’t have a magic
wand to suddenly put a product onto
our shelves because somebody really
needs it; we just can’t make things
appear out of thin air.
4. Why did my neighbor get [____] and I didn’t?
Your neighbor may have visited us
more recently, or has a larger family;
or they may have been two or three
orders behind you the last time you
visited, and we ran out of whatever
they got this time before their order
was filled last time. Your order is
based on your household size and your
shopping history, and what we have
on the shelves when we get to your
order.
5. Can I swap [____] for two of [____]?
Unfortunately, we can’t make swaps of
this fashion. All of our products are
distributed on the basis of normal,
predictable product use; swapping one
of this for two of that may mean that
we’ll have one of this available for
another family – but we now have one
less of that available. And usually we
can’t swap this for that functionally.
6. But I really need [___]...
Unfortunately, we can’t change the
laws of nature. If we don’t have a
product in stock, we have no way of
giving it to you. We wish that there
was a way we could wave a magic wand
and tell reality that you really
need dish soap or laundry detergent
and have it miraculously appear on the
shelf – but we haven’t been able to
find a magic wand that works in here.
If you want to avoid a potentially
wasted trip, you’re welcome to call
and ask about our supplies before you
arrive. We can’t reserve any product
for you – that is, we can’t put it aside
until you get here – but we can at least
tell you whether we’ve got lots and
lots of the product you need, or
whether we’re scraping the bottom of
the barrel.
7. What happens if you’re out of a product I need?
Basically, you try again the next time
you’re able to visit. Your shopping list
will have all of the products that your
household is eligible for that you have
not already gotten within the defined
product lifespan.
8. How did you define the product lifespans?
These were defined on the basis of
actual household use. The Pantry’s first
Coordinator spent about nine months
dating every product she used in her
home with her family of two, and
finding out how long that product
lasted her. We take those numbers as
our “baseline” numbers for a
household of 1 or 2, and then adjust
for larger households, decreasing by a
few days (usually 3 or 5) for every
additional two people.
9. Where do you get the products?
We have to buy almost all of what we
put on the shelf. There just aren’t a lot
of channels for “gleaning” products
that would otherwise be going to the
landfill, as there is with food. We get
some products donated, but even then
the products are usually purchased by
the person donating them. We’ll
keep working to improve our
funding, but we face budget problems,
as well.