Northeast Iowa Food Bank — Attraction in Waterloo

LOTS OF MOLD IN EVERY VEGETABLE, NO FREE BOXES OR BAGS, MUST CARRY ALL YOUR FOOD OUT OF THERE, INCREDIBLY RUDE STAFF. they constantly re-use the same four cardboxes to store their vegetables every day, as a result, there is black mold riddled through the entire produce storage area, right when you walk in. they get most of their donations from Hyvee, and less than 70% of what is donated is actually given to people, the employees, mainly the rich white higher up's there, take all the good stuff for themselves, and like most of the american economy, leave scraps for the public. the people who work there are usually incredibly rude, no matter how polite you are, and from what i have seen, if you are polite, you get railroaded, if you are mean, they give you more stuff just to get rid of you. they refuse to ever give people grocery bags, or boxes to carry the food away with. you expect my homeless ass to carry 36 cans of food, 8 boxes of noodles, a carton of eggs, two boxes of cereal, a gallon of milk, a 5lb bag of frozen chicken, and a bag of salad out of there, without a bag... really??? nah fam, they may feed people, which is cool, but they feed people moldy expired trash, and have probably been the cause of multiple food poisoning cases, and fungal infections in the waterloo area.... this place is gross, and needs new managment. i tend to get better, healthier, meals from dumpsters, than...

For a single person without access to a freezer larger than a freezer that is already a part of a refrigerator, it is difficult to find foods that will provide smaller portions. Several of the meats, frozen items and fruits are in large bulk portions and are either Frozen or in their refrigerators. Unless you thaw, cook, reportion and then refreeze (if you have room) it's too hard to find foods to take.

The quality of the fresh goods like fruits and vegetables had been improving, mostly, in the last several months. However, the fresh vegetables received as part of a thanksgiving basket went bad before the three days had passed by to get to Thanksgiving. Any time they give fresh fruits, vegetables, and or milk products, out it's so hard to make them last, because they go bad within 3 days. Or you take a closed bag of fresh vegetables or fruits home, open it, only then do you find out there is rotted food inside the bag which must be thrown out.

When you have a month before you can get food again, and you received $15 in food stamps, 30 days is a long time.

It doesn't help someone to give them inedible food...

If I could rate less I would. If I could post a video... I would.Absolutely rude staff extremely disrespectful, acts like they are better than everyone and turns their nose up. Usually I don't complain but this time around they completely skipped over my number, and two others. Got home to find numerous flies AND nats INSIDE the food. Molded pears with fuzzy mold on them. And to top it all off they allow people to "pick up" 4 households at a time so there is NO selection for people who actually need food. There's needs to be someone responsible enough to go figure out what's been going on, where all that donated extra money has gone too and why only certain ppl are allowed to collect an abundance of food versus others who are honest about their income and household. Very sad...very...