Hunger Is Not a Disease

Bringing it Home to the Food Pantry – Part 1

“Their income is going down while food costs are not.”-William S. Simon

Beginning with this post, the next few posts will focus on how the food actually gets to the pantry from the Food Bank.  This is a huge part of the coordinator’s job.  Also, whenever anyone speaks to me about the food pantry, the question they always ask first is “Where does the food come from?  How do you get it to the pantry?”

What follows is the answer.

Once it became obvious that the 3-day rule directed by Hunger Prevention Nutrition Assistance Program (HPNAP) was pretty much here to stay.  I began to try to get the food to the pantry.   After all, a 3-day supply of food for everyone in the household is a far cry from a can of tuna, a box of cereal, and a jar of peanut butter.

The bottom line here is that the whole pantry was turned upside down.  I placed an order every month from the Food Bank.  The Food Bank of Northeastern New York has a monthly delivery route throughout its territory and our shipment arrived in the parking lot behind the Hannaford’s in the Kingston Plaza Shopping Center on a prearranged Tuesday morning, usually on the third Tuesday,.  We had a standing 9:15 a.m. appointment.

I began asking individuals at the different congregations to help bring over the food from Kingston.  Every month was a new beginning because I was relying on whatever congregation had volunteers in the pantry each month.  I asked Carmen Adler, my  contact at Christ Lutheran Church, to help me one month.   One volunteer showed up to help.  Although he was  willing to help, he had a bad back and his pickup had faulty brakes.  I knew I had to do something.

Gene Huckle dropped by the pantry.  “What you need is a truck, Thurman.  Go to a Town Board meeting and ask the town to send a truck over to Kingston for the food.  Delivery day takes only a couple of hours of truck time each month.  Surely there’s an available truck somewhere.”

Go Gene!

In the next post, we’ll find out what happened with the truck and begin to understand how I ordered the food.

Thanks for following this blog/book.

There is absolutely no excuse for anyone in our great nation to go hungry,

Peace and food for all.

Thurman Greco

Woodstock, NY