Sandwich-Making Improvements: Purchasing

Before making the brown bag lunches for the community center one has to buy the ingredients. Your humble blogger/purchasing agent often made mistakes when Outreach volunteers started making sandwiches two years ago (we served hot lunches cafeteria-style for 18 years before 2020) and had to run back to the market several times when we neglected to purchase various items.

It now takes an hour to blitz through the aisles and throw everything into one cart (picture). The Costco cashier was impressed when I specified nine bags of apples, 24 loaves of bread, and four packages each of ham, turkey, and cheese, plus assorted condiments and supplies. He asked if I had a sandwich business or if I was hosting a picnic.

No, we're making sandwiches for the homeless.

"How often do you do this?"

Four times a year, and the church has been doing it for a couple of years. The total should be a little over $300. Both the cashier and the bagger were impressed when the bill turned out to be $330.

Dr. Deming would have smiled approvingly at our sandwich-making improvements.