In some ways, the process is similar to ordering groceries online. Except that you are ordering for 300+ families from a quirky store that may or may not have much to choose from. And doing it twice per week.

That doesn't really capture the experience though. In reality, it's more like some madcap game of Hungry Hungry Hippos played against rival food pantries dotted around the state. There's only so much food to go around, after all, so you better be quick! Putting something in your basket is no guarantee it will still be available when you "check out." The pressure is ratcheted up even further, because items are often described rather cryptically (the system has no pictures), and some things are tantalizingly designated as "if available". So exactly what you are grabbing, if you are grabbing anything at all, is not always 100% clear.

For every order, the game has several "rounds" - you can adjust your order as many times as you like within a designated ordering window, with new items appearing at seemingly random times. If you like checking your Instagram feed a hundred times a day, you'll love this game! Adding even more excitement, the ordering window can change for all sorts of reasons: and if you haven't ordered on time - No Food For You!

There's a Tetris-like component, too, because everything you order has to fit on the delivery truck, and then be squeezed into the pantry. Don't spend too long thinking about that though: if you hesitate, the item may be gone!

There's some skill to all this but, like any good game, there is an element of luck too. Log in at exactly the right time, and you can score big time. Delay by five minutes and you are filling the truck with rutabaga and praying that some more desirable things are added before your ordering window slams shut.

Finally, any worthwhile game needs new features to keep things fresh. For 2023, some items are now only available for purchase (previously, everything was free). So, should you spring for twenty cases of expensive Cheerios, or keep your fingers crossed for a food drive jackpot? Only you can decide, and the clock is ticking! (No foreshadowing here, naturally).

Wanna have a go yourself? Apply Within!

Farmingville Elementary School in Ridgefield really one-upped Bethel's Rockwell Elementary School in the hyper-competitive world of food drive dominos. Pictured here are Farmingville's Principal Nancy Caron (L) and Art teacher Rachael Zumbo-Penney, with just a small fraction of the 600 boxes of breakfast munchie goodness collected by students - comfortably beating Rockwell's total brought in last year. There is a video - of course there is. And the cutthroat world of elementary school food drive rivalry will shortly be the subject of our new hit Podcast, Cereal. Ahem.

Not to sound like a broken record, but we are breaking the other kind of records once again. Although 2022 was our busiest year ever, there were only a handful of weeks when we served more than 500 families - and never close to 600. So far in 2023, we have served over 600 families almost every week.

While there is a feel-good factor to helping so many people, this situation is simply not sustainable over the long term - we do not have the space or logistics to feed such numbers. While no one is turned away without food, folks coming toward the end of distributions get less - which in some ways can produce more inequities than further limiting the number of visits allowed per month. Nothing yet to announce here, but we are looking at both short and long-term changes to respond to this new reality.

No store-bought card could possibly be worthy, so Pattie Thompson set to work and created this work of genius. Watch your back Hallmark!

No store-bought cake could possibly be worthy, so...oh wait, we had a store- bought cake. It was still pretty yummy though.

Historians will puzzle over the significance of the three bags. But if you know, you know.

We made Marybeth come to her own party even though she was suffering from a terrible cold.

Debbie Fantel with three of her young charges.

Gladys (4th from left) brought her famous lasagne - so large it came with its own gravitational field. No-one escaped the pull of its cheesy goodness.