Pantry Overhaul & Feeding Families!

I received a flyer in my mailbox recently regarding the Stamp Out Hunger Food Drive being held nationwide on Saturday May 14, 2011.  I figured this was an excellent opportunity to support a great cause, and at the same time, clear out my pantry of excess food that we have not & probably will not eat.  Let me present to you my overcrowded, messy & unorganized pantry BEFORE the overhaul.

Do you see the disaster that I have been living with for the past few months??!!  Food shoved anywhere that it would fit, plastic grocery bags spewing off the shelf, random things thrown all over the floor!  Ugh, what a mess!  I cannot believe it has taken me this long to get this thing cleaned out!

Here are some random things I found during my clean out...

Empty boxes, courtesy of Marc.  I asked him last night after finishing did he know the sucker box was empty?  He said 'yep' & smiled.  Umm hello, how hard is it to throw the box away after you take the last one out??!!  He is notorious for leaving a few pieces in the cereal box, a cracker or two in the container, and as as you can see, empty boxes in the pantry.  It's pure laziness, I tell ya (good thing I still love him!)!

This is the bag of plastic ware that I found on the top shelf of our pantry.  Why on earth do we have hundreds of plastic spoons, forks & knives??!!  I swear, with all of this plastic cutlery, we could serve an army!  DO NOT, and I repeat, DO NOT let me buy any more plastic ware until this bag is completely empty...which will probably be years & years from now!

Marc gets A LOT of coffee samples through work.  Take a look at how many boxes we had sitting on the floor of our pantry.  Insane!

My first order of business was to get rid of the coffee boxes & store the bags of coffee in smaller containers to take up less space.  I had these assorted paper bags in the pantry & realized they were a perfect storage place for the coffee.  I labeled each of the bags with the different types of coffee & voila!  I was able to get rid of the huge boxes, & take up much less space storing the coffee!

After about an hour of tossing, rearranging & reorganizing, I finally had a clean & organized pantry!  And best of all, the floor is free of debris!  Hallelujah!

Adios to (3) plastic bags full of TRASH, most really, really old food that had expired.  Yuck!



And here is my pretty paper bag to donate to the Food Drive!

If you have any extra non-perishable food items laying around, I urge you to bag them up, leave them by your mailbox for pickup on Saturday May 14, 2001.  Your letter carrier will deliver the food to your local food bank or pantry.  Let's Stamp Out Hunger...and have a clean & organized pantry...together! :)