Good morning friends of Care and Share!

The holidays came a little early at Care and Share, and we’re already checking two things off our wish list: an automatic pallet wrapping device and pallet down stacker. Funding from the Colorado Department of Human Services is allowing us to purchase this equipment that will help our distribution center staff get more food to more of our partner agencies faster.

Sometimes, we receive pallets of food that are stacked too high to fit on the racks in our distribution center. When this happens, our staff and volunteers spend extra time unstacking the food until it is short enough to fit on our shelves. Our new pallet down stacker will work like a giant spatula attached to a forklift, so we can take off all of the extra layers of product at one time instead of needing multiple people to move individual items or boxes off a pallet.

Once a delivery is on a pallet and ready to be shipped, it has to be shrink wrapped to make sure everything stays together safely on the pallet while it’s on the truck for delivery. Usually, our distribution center staff wraps the pallets with several layers of shrink wrap, but with an automatic pallet wrapper, our staff will simply put full pallets on a turntable and the machine will cover the pallet with shrink wrap as it spins around.

Our new equipment will help us do what we do best even better – getting food to our neighbors in need.