Lunch Supplies
Does your group want to partner with us to make and serve lunches in and around Denver? Send us a note on our contact page.
Supplies
Bread for 100 sandwiches (see serving size, typically one loaf = ~10 sandwiches)
Peanut butter: 5 [40oz] jars (creamy not crunchy)
Jam/Spread (better than “jelly”):
2 [42oz] Costco jars or
3 [32oz] jars from regular grocery
100+ chewy granola/nutrigrain type breakfast bars (chewy not crunchy)
100+ snack sized chip bags
80 bottles of water
100+ fruit: if not fresh fruit, don't forget spoons
All bags of Cuties are not created equal. Consider how many cuties appear to be in each bag. You must count Cuties.
Tablecloth
Sandwich bags: come in boxes of 125, generally
Brown paper bags (think about what fruit you’re buying. Bigger bags are better for bananas (#6 bags for cuties or fruit cups, #8 bags for bananas)
Plastic/latex gloves
Utensils for spreading peanut butter and jelly
3 straight spatulas or flexible silicone spatulas
Spoons
Some Further Notes on Supplies
A Note for AfterHours
The Jims have thousands of plastic gloves, ask them to bring some.
Bread
White bread or a “smooth/honey” variety of wheat is better than the nut and bolts, sticks and twigs type of bread. Consider that our friends taking shelter outside may not be used to a fiber rich diet.
Take a look at your loaves of bread. Are the heels super small? If they are very small you’ll need to consider buying an extra loaf.
Granola
Look at the box through eyes that have no teeth. Can you eat them easily? Crunchy granola bars are impossible if your teeth are in bad condition
In all things, consider hospitality. Who are your guests who are eating this meal? What is the condition of their body, mouth, teeth, gut? Is your bread in good condition or is it frozen/smooshed? What would you want to eat?
How to Accomplish This Efficiently
Sandwiches
Under ideal conditions you will have three sandwich making stations. Each station will include:
One peanut butter spreader
One jam spreader
One bagger
Each person who handles unpackaged food should wear gloves.
Peanut butter should be spread on both pieces of bread, which protects the bread from getting soggy from the jam. Spreading peanut butter with a straight metal spatula or a flexible silicone variety is a lot easier than a regular kitchen knife. As long as they are robust, use the heels with the crust side turned in!
Jam doesn’t need to be perfectly spread on each sandwich, but it also shouldn’t be slapped on in a big glob. Again, consider what you would want to eat. Then place each sandwich in a sandwich bag.
Finally, move the completed sandwiches to be ready to be placed in a lunch sack.
Extra sandwiches: if you end up with bread for more than 100 lunches, make the sandwiches, bag them, and place them back in a bag one of your loaves came in.
Sacks
A separate station should be set up where at least 2 or 3 people open brown paper bags and place within:
Granola bar
Fruit
Chips
The order matters! All the bags can be prepped like this while sandwiches are being made and staged to wait for sandwiches.
As sandwiches are completed they can be placed in the paper bags vertically, next to the chips. Then the top of the finished bag should be quickly rolled down before it is placed in whatever vessel you’ve chosen to transport your lunches.
A note on volunteers
Maybe it’s not a coincidence that it takes about 12 people to do this efficiently. It’s possible to have too many cooks in the kitchen! If you have more than 15 people, some can sit and chat or just vibe. Fewer than 8 helpers is going to be pretty slow.
Blessing
At AfterHours we like to bless the lunches when they are complete, just as we would ask for a blessing over a meal we would share together.