Meet Woodstock’s Food Pantry – Part 2 – A Shopper Touches My Heart and Soul
As the numbers escalated, I saw more and more hard working people struggling with the reality of not having any money for food after they bought the gas needed to get to a minimum wage job. I served people just laid off from a job who I knew would never work again. Seriously ill people came for food when they had no money left because every dime had gone to pay the medical bills. People came in traumatized when their homes were foreclosed or destroyed because of Hurricane Irene and Sandy.
For the most part, I accepted everyone as they presented themselves. Unless they were frightening to the volunteers, they were absolutely okay. In fact, I loved them all…even the aggressive ones.
Only 2 shoppers ever really “got to me”. I learned through these 2 men that there were weak spots in my shell after all.
The first was an older man who came into the pantry wearing a baseball cap which read “Korean War Veteran”. I simply could not then and cannot now come to terms with the fact that this man, who put his life on the line in the very brutal Korean conflict in the early 1950s is now, as an old man, reduced to standing in a food pantry line.
“Our country simply needs to have more respect for those we send to the front lines.” I could be heard muttering to any nearby volunteer after each of his visits. “Seeing this man just makes me want to take a pitchfork and head for Washington, D.C.” At the back of my mind was the realization that pantries throughout our country have not yet begun to really see the returning vets from Iraq and Afghanistan.
Thank you for reading this post. It has been and continues to be an honor to serve the hungry.
Peace and food for all.
Thurman Greco
Woodstock, NY
