Elizabeth A. Harris and Alexandra Alter, The New York Times ; To Help SNAP Recipients, Bookstores Set Up as Food Banks
"With federal funding for food stamps threatened, employees at a bookstore in Lincoln, Neb., went to their boss with an idea: If people were going hungry, maybe they could help.
Workers at the store, Sower Books, soon set up a food collection bin near the front door. Customers and neighbors brought in bags and boxes of groceries; others came to browse for books, saw the bin and returned later with their own donations. Within a week, the storage room was stuffed with close to 2,000 pounds of food.
Nearly out of storage space, the bookstore put out a call for drivers on social media, and earlier this month, customers volunteered their cars and pickup trucks to ferry boxed and canned goods to a food pantry across town. The store’s back room has since filled up again with donations. On Monday, staff members made another run to the pantry, delivering more than 830 pounds of food — enough for roughly 1,700 meals...
Tory Hall, Sower’s owner, said the food drive felt like a natural extension of the store’s role as a community gathering place, where people drop in to do puzzles, have coffee, attend a book club and snuggle with the store’s adoptable rescue cats. Many customers seemed grateful that Sower gave them an easy way to help, Hall said.
“We’re not sitting here sad that everything is burning,” Hall said. “We’re going to find a fire extinguisher.”"
