[Bookstoprisoners] food for the confernece

[Jacqueline Hannah]

Hello all,

Barbara called and shared with me that there were strong concerns about our
current plans to source over half the food for the conference from
Strawberry Fields due to their recent closing of their deli and they way in
which they fired the deli staff.  I just wanted to share some thoughts on
this issue.

First, I respect the concerns about supporting Strawberry Fields (SF) at
this time and applaud the source of those concerns which I understand being
to not want to support a business that treats their employees unfairly.
Will not allowing SF to cater our event make a statement to the owners about
their practices?  As someone who worked for Paul Dohme, the owner of SF, and
Jack Wallace, the general manager I can honestly say, no, I don't believe
so.  While enough pressure and loss in sales might cause a one-time
reversal, the thoughtless treatment of their employees based on their whims
and their profits is not new at SF and is intrinsic to the way they believe
in doing business.  I strongly believe that not hiring them to cater our
event and making it clear they are losing over $500 worth of business due to
their recent actions might send a message, but will not change "business as
usual" at SF.

Some other points:
- we are receiving a 15% discount on the food due to the generosity of the
catering manager, who is giving us his personal discount by claiming to be a
member of our group because he respects the work we do and knows the owners
would never otherwise authorize such a discount for *any* organization or
charity.   Due to this discount, we are getting a large amount of healthy,
locally-made and mostly organic food for our conference at prices that rival
what you'd pay for the awful catering available at corporate chains like
County Market.
- we will still be supporting local business, which will keep more of our
money in our local economy; we are still supporting organic food, which
improves food safety and the future of the environment for us all.
- SF will make almost no profit off of the catering we have ordered because
a significant chunk of their profit margin will be eaten up by the discount
we are receiving
- while we can all agree that the recent treatment of SF's employees was
unacceptable, I have to tell you honestly as someone who has been in retail
management for well over a decade that SF treated me and my fellow employees
better than anywhere else I have ever worked, save the food co-op which is
in a class by itself.   Reality is that the employees at most all of the
businesses you patronize are treated no better than those at SF and most are
treated worse.  If you have ever had to work in food service or retail, you
will know what I say is true.  SF has very good benefits for such a small
business - many businesses as small as them offer no health benefits or very
minimal ones, SF has very good ones.   They also offer decent dental and
life benefits at a reasonable price.  They treat you with more respect than
most retail businesses out there.  It feels somewhat arbitrary to me to
single out SF for boycotting based on this one incident.
- catering food for a large group is an art and a lot of work and I say this
as someone with 3 years of management experience in catering.  Our current
plan is very affordable, easy and will work without hitches while supporting
organic, local food.  That's pretty impressive.

After saying all of this, I have no issues with going through another
locally-owned business that we can feel good about for the food - but will
they be able to give us the same price?  Will they also deliver and bring
all the plates and everything we need to serve the food and set it up at no
charge so we can focus on the conference?  Who will organize this?

If someone else wants to step up to organize food for a group of shifting
size on a very small budget and has confidence they can do this and make
sure we have everything we need and have enough food while being able to
feel we are supporting the most socially just food/business we can on our
budget I thrilled to hear it and I will with great willingness step down
from being one of the main food coordinators for the event. If I didn't have
a very demanding full time job I would offer to source all the of the food
from the co-op at cost and cook it all myself as it is something I enjoy and
I am trained in - but years of catering large groups and of throwing large
events for local non-profits has taught me to be a realist and keep the plan
as simple as possible for the greatest chances of success.  ;)

Respectfully,
Jacqueline Hannah
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