Whether you’ve volunteered with The Open Door for a week or YEARS, you’ve probably heard various nicknames, acronyms, or terminology that’s left you thinking.. “Huh?!” Well, we’re here to clear things up! Check out some popular terms below that you’ll hear while volunteering at The Open Door!
- TOD: The Open Door
- PUPs: Pop Up Produce Stand; seasonal Mobile Pantry distributions
- U-boat: Blue carts in the warehouse in the shape of a ‘U’ that are used to transport food
- Banana Boxes: The boxes we store all our food in! These are the only boxes that we save and reuse. They are sturdy, fit well on a U-boat, and can hold 40-50 lbs.
- Baby Box: Little box truck used at offsite distributions
- Big Foot: Our largest truck in the fleet at 26 ft. This is the large purple truck that’s hard to miss!
- To-Go Bag: A bag of food given to someone who doesn’t have a scheduled Eagan Pantry appointment. They consist of common pantry items such as milk, eggs, and produce.
- MLB: Mobile Lunchbox; our summer program where we partner with school districts to bring lunches to kids!
- TEFAP: The Emergency Food Assistance Program; a federal program that helps The Open Door purchase food for low-income households at no cost to them! We are able to purchase TEFAP food from Second Harvest Heartland (see next bullet point!).
- Food Bank: A warehouse and distribution center that supplies food to food shelves. Second Harvest Heartland and The Food Group are two food banks we use to order food.
- Food Pantry/Shelf: Distributes food directly to those in need. There are over 450 food shelves in MN and The Open Door is one of the top five largest food shelves in the ENTIRE state!
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