Abundance 2: LeAnna, Catherine, and Jane – Women, Mothers, and Hunger in the Food Pantry
Abundance. LeAnna volunteered in the pantry. She had a business degree, a house, two adorable children and a spouse with a fancy career post somewhere in Europe. He decided he wanted nothing to do with her anymore. No money came across the ocean for her and the children. There was no money for taxes she owned on the house, or anything else for that matter.
LeAnna was happy to take the vegetarian items available each week. Her children loved fresh vegetables so there was much to choose from. The girls saw yogurt as a treat.
Catherine had a house full of children including two so close together, I thought they were a set of twins. She couldn’t get it together to work. And, I doubt if she could have gotten employment in our area anyway. This lovely lady had two advanced degrees.
There weren’t many, or possibly any, jobs available in Ulster County in her career field. And, of course, once a woman gets an advanced degree, the lower level jobs aren’t open to her unless she hides the education. Sometimes education can be hidden. Sometimes not. It all depends on the situation. The main thing is to get it off the resume.
Catherine was open-minded about the food she selected. She took anything not tied down. Because she qualified for cases of USDA, Catherine left the pantry with a case each of pasta sauce, canned corn, green beans, vegetarian beans, refried beans.
When she finished shopping, ten-year-old Robert Allen, our next-to-youngest volunteer, brought out the flatbed metal wheeled cart, put her groceries on it, and wheeled them to her car. Little toddler Mikey, our youngest volunteer, ran along behind.
I saw Jane, the young mother who couldn’t work because her husband threw her up against a wall, injuring her back. She had an eight-year-old child she was trying to raise without the luxury of child support.
Jane chose items from shelves where bending and stretching weren’t necessary because she couldn’t do those things.
And, to return to the beginning of Abundance, these three families and referenes to the critics about shoppers all owning upscale cars – Catherine, LeAnna, and Jane owned fairly late model SUV’s in good condition. They invited the criticism of the pantry naysayers when they drove into the parking lot to shop.
Here we had three households, single-headed households in need of food. If not for a couple of years, then for several months.
For some, feeding hungry people means we fed freeloaders. Not all hungry people look needy. Some of the best-dressed people in Woodstock never spent a dime on their clothes. They had no money for clothes so they shopped at Family of Woodstock.
Neither of these households was homeless, although they could be when the tax collector came to call.
Neither of these households was without transportation although they could be if the SUV needed expensive repairs. Nobody in these households looked poverty-stricken although they could be if the car needed repairs.
For the moment, neither LeAnna, Catherine, nor Jane looked poverty-stricken although, they would in time with no child support from the spouse to help with expenses.
These three women had several things in common. They were divorced. They had children. They received no money from the ex-spouse even though each one had a lucrative, influential employment career, money, and a bright future.
There was not a job among them.
There was little or no money for a food budget even.
LeAnna, Catherine, and Jane each lived with abundance on one hand, a large box of unpaid bills on the other hand, and hope, dreams, and fears somewhere in the middle.
The children were eligible for school breakfast and lunch programs. But, that didn’t give them enough food to eat at home. And, there was no lunch program for the mothers.
So, it was off to the pantry. This was a life-changing decision. Using a pantry requires commitment, endurance, and effort. Attitudes about food in particular and life in general change.
Pantry shoppers are often self-disciplined, self-controlled, determined to do what is best for the family.
Freeloaders? What do you think?
Every week when these women shopped I saw myself as a young woman returning from Mexico with my two daughters and nothing but the clothes on my back. There was no way anyone, just by looking at me, would have known how little I had.
Whether we come to the pantry as shoppers, volunteers, or both, all of us are asked by the pantry to leave; the past behind. And, of course, that’s different for everyone.
How can we move forward into a new life if we never give anything up? For some, giving up the past means letting go of the job we lost, the home, the furniture that went in the home, maybe the family, self-esteem, the car, good health.
What happens in the pantry, this shopping, this offloading, has the potential to be the greatest journey of one’s life. The hungry person learns things in new ways, and sees things never noticed before. And, finally, there is the knowledge that anything can happen. When all is said and done, things will never be the same again. Better off for the experience, thoughts change.
Beliefs and core values are found.
I’m sticking my neck out here to say this.
Being hunger in 21st century America is a spiritual journey involving miracles, forgiveness, endurance, and spiritual healing. It’s all about discovering that it’s never too late to be who you really are.
That’s what this story is all about.
Thank you for reading this blog post in two parts. Please forward it to your preferred social media network.
Thurman Greco
Stealing?
“There’s a difference between criminals and crooks. Crooks steal. Criminals blow some guy’s brains out. I’m a crook.” – Ronald Biggs
“If a day comes when we don’t have any volunteers, all we have to do is put a nail in the wall and hang up the key. The shoppers will let themselves in the pantry, shop, and lock the door behind them.”
I always take pride in saying the Good Neighbor Food Pantry didn’t even need volunteers.
Of course, this was an exaggeration. But it applied to many of our regular shoppers who knew the rules, knew how much food they were allowed to take, and respected the system. It did not, however, apply to all of the shoppers nor did it apply to all the volunteers. We had several shoppers and volunteers who simply could not live with the three-day supply of food rule.
Pantries, by their nature, are overrun with rules. They are layered with rules. The rules have rules. There are more rules than cans of food in food pantries.
First, the Food Bank has rules: what kind of food we can serve and to whom, what the pantry should look like and how clean it should be, who gets the food.
Shelving is to be six inches away from the walls.
The bottom shelf of each unit is to be six inches off the floor.
The USDA food must be displayed.
Pantry volunteers receive safe food handling training at least once every five years.
The pantry has to comply with food safety standards.
Pantries are not allowed to barter food with other agencies.
Pantries are not allowed to give food to other agencies.
All the food is to be distributed to specifically designated needy persons.
The Hunger Prevention Nutrition Assistance Program has a whole other selection of rules, guidelines focusing on how much food we should serve and what its nutritional value should be.
Pantries are expected to offer fresh fruits and vegetables, whole grain breads, and proteins.
Pantries are expected to support the MyPlate guideline on food selection.
Pantries are expected to serve the shoppers with dignity.
Pantries are required to serve a minimum of a three-day supply of food to recipients.
Pantries may never discriminate against anyone in the provision of service to the hungry.
And, of course, in the Good Neighbor Food Pantry, the building committee was not to be outdone by anyone else. The building committee had its own list of rules:
The building committee was concerned with the hours we could be in the building.
The building committee was concerned with which days of the week we could be in the building.
The building committee was concerned with how many chairs could be in the hallway.
The building committee was concerned about what products we could have in the hallway.
The building committee was concerned with when and where we could be in the parking lot.
The building committee was concerned with when the produce could come into the building and how long it could stay.
The building committee was concerned with the cardboard.
Finally, the rabbis, pastors, and priests of the Woodstock Interfaith Council liked to chime in when I got too enthusiastic and raised to much money or fed too many people.
The important thing was to refrain from serving the unworthy hungry.
I divided the whole crowd into four groups. The first group I jokingly referred to as the Hot Doggers. These people liked to make the rules whether or not they had the authority. And, if they didn’t have the authority to make the rules, who cared? “Scream loud enough and you’ll be heard” seemed to be the motto.
The second group I sadly referred to as the followers. These were the shoppers and volunteers who had trouble dealing with the layers and layers of rules. At one point in the timeline of the pantry, (leading up to and during the Inquisition), people asked each other “what are today’s rules” as the building committee grappled with how many chairs we could have in the hallway for the shoppers, whether or not we could offer food in the hallway, and whether or we could offer diapers or pet food.
This group (the followers) was really in a bad place during some of the uncertain times in the pantry. They needed the food and they were voiceless. Absolutely no one cared what their needs were. It was hardest on those with mental and emotional issues.
One shopper summed it all up on several Wednesdays when she ran through the parking lot yelling “Thurman Greco is a fucking asshole!” at the top of her lungs.
And, finally, the third group was the onlookers. These were the people who lived in the community, lifted not one finger to help, and gave not one penny of support. Their claim to fame was their criticism of all the people who came to the pantry to shop or work and their criticism of everything that happened to the pantry even though they had never been to the place and knew nothing about what was going on.
It finally boiled down to respect. A fourth group was made up of shoppers and volunteers who didn’t care a whit about the rules, what was good for the pantry, what was expected of them, or anything else. All they knew was there was a lot of food finally coming through the place and they wanted it.
No matter what.
One such shopper was a beautiful young woman with two gorgeous daughters who had been coming to the pantry for years. She brought her children, as infants, with her every time she visited the pantry. The children became toddlers, then young children. The oldest daughter became ten. Gorgeous children. One day I realized she was teaching them to steal food.
She came into the crowded room with her two children who immediately scattered to different parts of the room and began to put food in the little bags. There was absolutely no way a person could follow what these three were doing. Final analysis required that an extra volunteer come into the already overcrowded room and supervise the children.
We had a cluster of shoppers who liked to come right at pantry closing time when we were distracted and under pressure with closing activities. Some came in the hope of taking extra produce home with them. Others came expecting to grab an extra can or two of some favorite product.
“You’re only allowed to take one can from that shelf, Sara.”
“Sorry. I forgot.”
One volunteer managed to squirrel away fifteen frozen pizzas.
One shopper, a young man with beautiful, shoulder length, auburn hair, tried to make off with ten bags of dried black beans.
“Put the beans back. We need to have enough bags for everyone. We won’t have enough if you guys take more than your share.”
No answer.
One volunteer brazenly went into the storeroom and carried out two large boxes of food she felt was owed to her simply because she was a volunteer.
“Dana, that food is for the take outs. You can’t take it.”
“Yes I can. I want it and you can’t stop me.”
“Dana, you can’t return here anymore.”
Then, we had one volunteer who went over to the items of dignity closet one afternoon and stuffed her pockets.
“Jean, what are you doing with all these items? We barely have enough to pass out to our shoppers.”
“These are for my friends.”
“Well, you can’t take them. Your friends aren’t signed in and we need these items for our registered shoppers. You know the rules. You’ve been working here a long time.”
One volunteer went around to area grocery stores and picked up foods for the Good Neighbor Food Pantry. Some of this food actually made it to the pantry. However, a portion of it was diverted to this volunteer’s friends and neighbors. The argument could be made that she distributed the food to people who needed it. That’s all well and good. However, she led the grocers to believe she was taking the food to the pantry to distribute to the hungry. She was being dishonest with the grocers who were entrusting the food to her. This reflected poorly on our pantry, I felt, as well as on all other pantries.
Finally, we had our mystery shoppers. Almost every week or two we came into the pantry to find that food had been removed from the shelves over the weekend. This was true in both the pantry and the storeroom.
Considering how many people went through the pantry, the thefts were very few.
As a pantry coordinator, I tried to convince everyone that the food on the shelves in a pantry is not there for the entertainment and amusement of disrespectful volunteers. Neither is it on the shelves for shoppers to take regardless of the rules.
Rather, the food belongs to the State of New York. It is only when it is put in one’s shopping bag after the person is signed in at the reception table that it becomes the property of the shopper.
The Food Bank and the Hunger Prevention Nutrition Assistance Program people had definite guidelines about how much food could be taken by both shoppers and volunteers alike. These rules were known by everyone.
Conclusion: Being a thief is a genetic trait.
