Hunger Is Not a Disease

Grief in the Food Pantry – Hunger is not a Disease

“Lemon Balm Betty is out in the parking lot again.”
When I think of grief, Lemon Balm Betty surfaces from my memory banks. She ran around the parking lot outside the food pantry as fast as her feet would carry her as she yelled at the top of her lungs “Thurman Greco is a f..king a..hole!”

“I don’t think she’s ever going to smile again.”

Her anger morphed into a smile one day when she brought in an armload of herbs.  I put them out in the pantry for shoppers.  Shen she saw this, a smile lit up her whole  being.

Finally!

Grief was unavoidable in the pantry.  Grief and fear are best friends.  Fearful people are uncomfortable and feel hurt in their hearts, clear down to their first chakras.

Grief happens when we realize how vulnerable we are, how insecure we are.

In our past, we sought security.  Some of us found it.

But, then, things spun out of control and our lives began again – in the pantry.

Pantry shoppers and volunteers live with grief.  No one talks about it but people working and shopping in a pantry lost a lot:  love, jobs, family (not to mention the house and everything in it), friends, self-respect, self-love.  Grief is an ongoing series of losses.  In the pantry, we all just duck our heads and press on.

Hungry people live with the specter of what if.

What if I hadn’t lost my job?

What if I hadn’t come down with cancer?

What if I hadn’t lost my car?

It’s all loss.  It’s all change, whether a lost job, the death of a loved one, a lost home.

Loss triggers grief.  And, it’s all incredibly lonely.

I occasionally saw people crying in the pantry.  And, truth be told, I cried in the pantry a few times as well.  Sometimes I cried silently.  Once I cried loud, earth shaking tears.  I was intensely afraid the pantry would shut down.  I knew there was no other place to feed the people.

I don’t remember the exact circumstances which made me so emotional that day.  The reason I cried escapes me now because why I cried wasn’t important.  More important, the pantry is a safe place for us all or no one would have shed a tear.  This safety allowed me to let my guard down for just a moment to cry the tears I needed to cry.

This I do remember:  I cried tears for us all in the building that day as numbness wore off.  This was grief at work.

Tears are necessary to heal  wounds.  There were drugs to numb and mask the pain but there were no pills to heal.  So…I cried because there were no grief pills at the Village Apothecary.

Grief is a journey confronting, enduring, and resolving loss.  A grieving person moves forward never leaving grief behind.  The pain, emotional suffering, were a necessary part of the process.  We grieved over things lost:  people, jobs, hopes, dreams, belief in self, fun.

The trip to the pantry left us all with unfinished business.  It was impossible to lose so much and have it go as a clean break.  No loss was perfect.  While we traveled to the pantry, our lives were full of ups and downs, good and bad moments.  We carried both happy and sad memories inside the pantry room.  Grief was the new normal.  But grief, with all its tears, paved the way for something positive which we experienced when sadness and loss diminished.

Grief attracted spine and joint problems, respiratory problems, irritable bowel syndrome, bronchitis, asthma, pulmonary issues.

Grief needed to be experienced with depth and honesty.  Denying grief got no one anywhere.  I was honest with myself about the grief I felt for the pantry.  If I hadn’t been, I would have lost the pantry to those who didn’t approve of me and the hungry people I fed.

Grief and anger were never far apart.  Anger was always there, just below the surface until it  yelled.

In the pantry, each of us were trying to figure out who we were at the moment and who we would be in the future.  In the middle of the grief, we explored a new reality we found while we each defined who we were in our new surroundings and community.

We tried on new careers and identities in our new lives.  As this happened, we saw the past, the present, and the future all at once.  This experience allowed us to see newly discovered talents, strengths, gifts.

In this experience, we created new voices.  We found courage to overcome fears.

I recognized this new voice whenever I heard “I won’t be coming again.  I got a new job and I’m moving on.”  When I heard this new voice, I also heard anxiety, struggle, disappointments, and courage.  The person was discovering what was going to work and what wouldn’t.

RITA

Rita lived in the Saugerties/Palenville area before Hurricane Irene.  That storm cost her everything.  One day her life was normal and the next day she had nothing.  The most anyone could say about Rita was that she was homeless.

A friend we both knew, Lorene, found Rita a worn out pickup somebody couldn’t sell or even give away.

Until I looked closely at it, I didn’t know what color it was.  I knew what color the tires were, though:  slick and bald.

So, anyway, Rita got the pickup and the key that went with it.  She put the key in the ignition, turned it.  The motor came to life.  It had enough gas to get her to the gas station.  Hurrah!

She began her life over by doing anything that anybody needed to have done for $10.00 an hour and lunch.  She cleaned out flooded houses and sheds.  She hauled trash to the dump.  She used her computer skills when she found anybody who needed administrative work done.  Her clothes came from Family of Woodstock.  She found a room in someone’s house and was finally not sleeping in the pickup.

Whenever she worked over in Woodstock on Wednesday, she took time out to shop at the pantry.

And, I will say this about Rita.

She never once grumbled.  She always had a smile on her face.  She always acted as if the pantry food was the best she had ever eaten.  And never, not even once, did she complain about the ancient jalopy pickup rig she drove around.

As far as I could tell, she never lost hope.  Without hope, I don’t think she would ever have made it to the other side – wherever that was.

For my part, I never once asked her how she got the pickup repaired and I never even looked near the inspection sticker.  Frankly, I was afraid to ask.  I was afraid she would tell me.

Rita was no different from any of the rest of us shopping and volunteering in the pantry.  She had to figure out how much of her past she could rebuild.  And she had to figure out how much of the past she was simply going to close the door on as she moved into the future after Hurricane Irene.  Rita obviously gave up much beyond her material possessions.

She gave up everything she felt stood in the way of her successful future.  Quitting was something she couldn’t afford.

She gave up rear vision.  Looking back into her past simply didn’t happen to Rita.  She gave up bitterness and seeing wrongs.  This means she gave a person a second chance, and even a third when they needed it.

She gave up waiting and putting off something because the stars and planets weren’t properly aligned.  She gave up criticism.  This included herself as well as others.

Rita was the right person in the right place in the right job to unfold her path in front of her.  She carried on each day as if she truly believed it was better than yesterday.  She walked as if blessings were all around her and all she had to do was open her eyes a little wider.

Each day, every day, she did whatever was necessary to build her life.  Rita embraced the future and renounced her past.

She never quit.

Thank you for reading this article.  Please refer this post to your preferred social media network.

Thurman Greco

 

 

 

Why I work in a pantry…even after all these years.

RT 28 at Boiceville
“This is perfect weather for a flood” she said casually. “It’s good to see the county out cleaning the ditches by the roads. We need to be ready.”
As I write this post, my mind travels back in time to the 1st pantry day after both Hurricane Irene and Super Storm Sandy. I managed a pantry in Woodstock, NY then. What pantry days they were! People came in looking for anything and everything they could find. They were upset, scared, coping with loss. Many had lost everything – car, house, job. They didn’t know where to turn.

Sadly, neither did I. As they filed in the pantry room, they asked questions that I couldn’t answer. So…I referred them to Family of Woodstock down the street. I simply didn’t know what else to do.

So, now I fast forward to the present where I manage a pantry in Boiceville, NY. Residents here are still recovering from Irene and Sandy. At this pantry, I see some of the same people I saw in Woodstock. Recovery is slow.

Reservoir Food Pantry volunteers work to assure that quality food is available for the many individuals and families in Ulster County. They struggle with food insecurity, homelessness, and underemployment. About 40% of our clients are transportation challenged and we deliver food to them.

Hunger comes in several categories in our area:
elderly poor
employed poor
ill poor
infant poor
generational poor
persistent poor
resource poor
situational poor
struggling poor

Regularly, without even a second thought, volunteers at our pantry located in the Ashokan Reservoir area of Upstate New York, work hand-in-glove with UlsterCorp volunteers, Rondout Valley Growers’ Association. Together, they make an an ongoing effort to provide enough food for those struggling daily with hunger.

Now, in 2015, area pantries are working to be a cohesive group with food storage and safety procedures known by everyone. We know, even if no one else does, how much the area hungry and homeless need the food. Hunger alleviation cannot be effectively carried out in a vacuum.

Our success depends on long term commitment and collaboration. We need to be able to escalate services when needed. Volunteers in our group are here for the time and effort necessary to fight hunger and homelessness in our area.

www.ulstercorps.org
www.familyofwoodstockinc.org
www.goodmorningwoodstock.com
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Peace and food for all.

Thurman Greco

A Summer Storm in New York State: Hurricane Irene and Super Storm Sandy

If we can conquer space, we can conquer childhood hunger.” – Buzz Aldrin
With hurricane season upon us again, I’m reminded that weather was always an important consideration for both pantry shoppers and volunteers in the Good Neighbor Food Pantry in Woodstock. Winters were important because of the cold, cold, cold waits in front of the building before the door opened.
But, summers were another matter altogether. Storms confronted us several times every summer. They ranged from gentle showers lasting a few minutes to hurricanes of historic proportions.
Always a concern in these summer events was the stream running along the side of the church building. Actually, the building was constructed right into the stream and the parking lot was on the other side of the stream. Drivers crossed over a tiny bridge to park.
Often, when rain came, the little stream rose. On several occasions I feared for the pantry. I didn’t fear for the building. It was built many years ago and had weathered many storms and high water events. I feared water would come into the pantry room which was on the lowest floor and right on ground level.
Luckily, this never happened. At one point, during a storm, we were distributing food to the shoppers and keeping an eye on the water level at the same time. The water came up to within two inches of coming into the building.
“Please shop quickly folks. That stream is rising very fast. I want us all to get our food before I have to close the pantry for our safety.”
I repeated these three sentences over and over and over. (As if the people could have shopped any faster. They were already being pushed to their limits regularly in an effort to get as many people through the pantry as we could during shopping hours.)
Then, in August, 2011, Hurricane Irene blew through. The seventh costliest hurricane in U.S. History, Irene landed at Coney Island on August 28th as a category 1 storm and then moved through New York State on its way over New England.
Throughout the Catskill Mountains and the Hudson River Valley, Irene caused floods described as five-hundred-year-floods by The Weather Channel.
On the next pantry day following Irene’s visit, people flocked in. They had no power in their homes, apartments, rooms. Some had lost everything. Others were inconvenienced by what was to be a week or more without power.
But, all were grateful for the food they received at the pantry.
Some in the line were visibly upset. It was painfully obvious that some of the people were never going to spiritually, emotionally, and financially recover from Irene. One couple, renting a place near Boiceville, lost everything, including their car. Someone they knew had a room in a shed further up the road on a hill. They moved in. They’re still there. They still don’t have a car. They walk to the Reservoir Food Pantry now and pick up what food they can carry to their home each week.
Within a short time, the Food Bank was making both Clorox and water in gallon jugs available.
The lesson I learned from Irene was to be prepared in the summer. Now, I order cleaning supplies throughout the year whenever they become available at the Food Bank. We try to keep bars of soap and toothbrushes on hand in the Items of Dignity section of the pantry.
Water is available in the pantry throughout the year. At a minimum, shoppers can take a bottle when they shop. In time of crisis they can, of course, take much more depending on what we have stacked in the back.
Having bottled water in the storeroom caused both problems and criticism when people who didn’t understand our ordering system saw case after case after case of water just sitting in a corner. This was particularly troubling to those who saw us allowing people to take only one bottle weekly throughout the year when we had so much in the storeroom.
When criticized, I simply refused to move off the dime. Two things with their own clocks: Food Banks and Hurricanes. I learned to work with both schedules.
When Superstorm Sandy hit New York City on October 29, 2012, the volunteers at the Good Neighbor Food Pantry were more prepared than when Irene visited. And, it was a good thing. Sandy was much larger and deadlier, affecting states from Florida to Maine. Sandy was both the second costliest hurricane in U.S. History and the deadliest.
At the pantry, we really didn’t skip a beat. As the shoppers filed in for food we asked each one about how they’d been affected by Sandy.
Probably half of the people coming through our doors in November were affected by Superstorm Sandy. As with Irene, some Sandy victims were unaware that food pantries even existed the week before. They just woke up one morning to discover life as they knew it to be totally different. To make matters worse, they soon realized they were in a new sociological category: situational poor. Not only were they homeless and scrounging for food, they were soon painfully aware they needed huge amounts of money to even begin the climb back to what they thought was normal.
“We’ve lost everything, our home, our car…everything.”
“We’re doing better than some Thurman. Part of our house is still standing. Our car is not gone.”
“Everything is gone, our home, our car, my job.”
On and on the stories went. Standing in the hall waiting to get food was calming for some. Others were not so calmed during their first visits. They looked around in the line and saw some of the people for what they were: alcoholics, artists, child abusers, children, crazies, the disabled, druggies, drunks, the elderly, hardworking people juggling two and three jobs, homeless, mentally ill, messed-up people, musicians, schizophrenics, terminally ill, thieves, Woodstock’s colorful characters, volunteers.
The Food Bank of the Hudson Valley shipped truckloads of food to our community in the weeks after Superstorm Sandy. In a short time, we served lines of people from the parking lot at St. John’s Roman Catholic Church off route 375 in West Hurley. In all, ten truckloads of food were distributed. This was in addition to food we were distributing to people on regular pantry days.
For months after Sandy’s visit, we ruminated over how to improve our disaster operations. Rich Allen devised a system he called “Buddy Up.” He asked each volunteer to contact another pantry and be prepared to communicate with these people in future storm events.
I went to the Town of Woodstock Board meetings several times and tried to involve the town in our efforts. I was never able to engage the Town Board in an effort to feed people in the event of a disaster.
The Good Neighbor Food pantry had the backing of the Food Bank of the Hudson Valley. We had volunteers trained to deliver food during emergencies. What we lacked were community officials who believed Woodstock would ever get hit. And, also, we had demonstrated that we could/would deliver large shipments of food to hungry people without involving the community in any way. Why should they bother to participate? A free ride already existed.
What we did not have and what we needed was for the Town of Woodstock to allow us to deliver and distribute large amounts of food to hungry people from a community property location if a damaging disaster struck our area.
When I requested this, I was met with glazed eyes, stares, and silence. And, really, why should they cooperate? The Catholic Church in West Hurley hosted these emergency mass food distributions now. Why change things? They simply didn’t to get involved if they could shove the job off on someone else.
My argument was that the community had a responsibility to offer a location. In the event of a serious future disaster, the parking lot of St. John’s Church was not big enough. I argued that preparation for a disaster would not hurt.
This story does not have a positive resolution. To my knowledge, no one stepped forward with a provision for emergency food distribution in Woodstock in the event of a catastrophic event.
The Reservoir Food Pantry and its location in Boiceville is now the focus of any disaster prevention efforts. Fortunately or unfortunately, Boiceville residents are familiar with superstorm aftermath.
Restoring normalcy to Upstate New Yorkers in the aftermath of both Irene and Sandy has been lacking. Many destroyed homes and businesses in our area are still not restored. A motel next to our Reservoir Food Pantry distribution point on Route 28 in Boiceville has been abandoned. Shoppers are coming for food who will probably never experience life as they knew it before Irene and Sandy.
Sadly, mold and rot advance without any help and buildings and vehicles do not repair themselves. We need to figure out how to facilitate rebuilding homes and businesses while preparing for the next disaster.
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Thurman Greco