Restocking Bean's Cafe is a community effort

Boxes of oatmeal and granola bars, #10 cans of vegetables and fruit, packs of tuna: These were just a few of the items that were nestled in cardboard collection boxes around Anchorage on a recent day. The food — some still swaddled in Fred Meyer bags — was all donated as part of a charity food drive to restock Bean's Cafe.

The doors of Bean's Cafe were reopened the morning of Thursday, March 3, following extensive clean-up from an incident involving an injured man who bled in public areas of the facility, but the nonprofit day shelter and soup kitchen is still trying to get back on its feet.

Bean's had to dispose of more than 20,000 pounds of food and supplies during the cleaning process, said Lisa Sauder, the executive director of Bean's.

"Luckily we're getting donations literally every day," Sauder said. "We received the majority of our food from two sources: From our contract with the Food Bank of Alaska and from individual donors or businesses that do food drives."

Sauder said four businesses have stepped up to help lead the donation charge.

BP, Alaska Native Tribal Health Consortium and Tatitlek Native Corp. launched food drives and asked their employees to help. Wells Fargo also agreed to match cash donations from the community, up to $10,000, until March 31. All four companies reached out to Bean's to see how they could help, Sauder said.

"We reached out because we realize the very important role they play in the community," said Kalani Parnell, one of the ANTHC employees helping with the food drive. "Upon hearing the news about their loss of shelf stock and temporary closure, we were moved to assist them because we serve some of the same population. Alaska has a rich history of helping our neighbors, so reaching out to help was the right thing to do."

Bean's serves, on average, 836 meals a day. They also provide "goodie bags" with sandwiches, granola bars and fresh fruit for the 125 client volunteers who help with the cooking, cleaning and various other tasks that keep the cafe operational.

The nonprofit will have no problem finding shelf space for donations from the area businesses; the dry storage room was still completely empty more than three weeks after the incident.

In addition to the food loss, another casualty was the shelving in the dry storage room. To ensure that no contaminant remained, Bean's gutted the room, throwing away the shelves and replacing the flooring in the process.

It wasn't until recently that employees and volunteers were able to bring in new shelves. The donations from the various organizations are some of what will fill the new shelves. Though operations are slowly returning to normal, Sauder said it'll still be a little while before all of the back-of-house functions are up and running.

"We were so fortunate that we have partners that stepped up to make sure nobody went unsheltered or hungry during that period and we're thrilled to be open again," Sauder said. "Our main focus was to make the day shelter space available again and getting meals served."

Traci Real, the BP food drive organizer, said she was on the Food Bank Board for many years, so she has an understanding of what it takes to serve Anchorage's most food vulnerable.

"I think we're pretty lucky and because of that, we owe it to our community to help those in need," Real said. "Food is a basic need."

Cash donations can be made through the Bean's website or by sending a check to Bean's Cafe at P.O. Box 100940, Anchorage, 99510.

?? This story was sponsored by Alaska Native Tribal Health Consortium, a nonprofit Tribal health organization designed to meet the unique health needs of more than 150,000 Alaska Native and American Indian people living in Alaska.?

This article was produced by the special content department of Alaska Dispatch News in collaboration with ANTHC. Contact the editor, Jamie Gonzales, at jgonzales@alaskadispatch.com. The ADN newsroom was not involved in its production.