Helping the homeless isn’t just about serving food.Volunteers at food recovery agencies like The Salvation Army and Bridge House must make sure donated foods comply with strict sanitary measures — which is where Elizabeth Reames and her team of AgCenter faculty come in.The land-grant universities of Louisiana, Arkansas and Mississippi launched a collaborative effort in 2003 to instruct volunteers at recovery shelters in the principles of food service safety — including causes and prevention of foodborne illness, proper storage and transportation temperatures and personal hygiene. Beth Reames, AgCenter professor and extension specialist, spearheaded the research and training program.”Everybody needs food service information, especially people in need who are most vulnerable to illness,” Reames said.The team included family and consumer science agents Alexis Navarro, Bertina McGhee, Sally Soileau, Terri Crawford, Sheila Haynes and Bertreal Rogers, as well as Food Science professor David Bankston, assistant professor Georgianna Tuuri and associate professor Mike Keenan. The team won first place regionally and nationally in Program Excellence Through Research at the National Extension Association of Family and Consumer Sciences convention, held in Indianapolis, Ind., September 15-19 The team instructed food service volunteers from organizations including The Salvation Army, Bridge House, Hope Haven and Christian Communities. These outreach agencies provide critical services and shelter in the metropolitan New Orleans area to needy people, from low-income seniors to recovering addicts to HIV patients. Bertina McGhee, extension agent and parish chair for New Orleans, said it was especially important the food donated to these agencies was free of any foodborne illness-causing bacteria.”Wherever there was a huge event, instead of the sponsors throwing away the extra food, they could have these agencies pick it up,” said Alexis Navarro, Family Consumer Science agent and parish chair for Jefferson parish.  Food came from places such as the Hilton New Orleans and the Ernest N. Morial Convention Center.”We actually got food from the Superdome,” Reames said. The AgCenter team offered hands-on and interactive training like tic-tac-toe for food safety, petri dishes demonstrating bacteria in sponges and under fingernails and proper handwashing techniqes. They also put white powders like baking soda in bags and asked volunteers to identify them from other powders such as carpet fresh, to demonstrate the need for proper labeling. The effectiveness of the team’s training was measured through tests conducted three months after the workshops ended to determine how well volunteers retained the information.”The posttest did demonstrate that the program was successful,” Navarro said.—-
Contact Charles Schully at [email protected]