Meet Woodstock’s Food Pantry – Part 4 – Trouble Rears it’s Head in the Pantry
In the last post, I discussed Bread Alone and it’s connection to the local food pantry.
Everyone else in town goes across the street to Maria’s, a local restaurant owned by an Italian family who also has a very upscale pasta factory, Bella Pasta. Maria is a lovely lady who treats everyone as if we’re guests in her home.
Maria was a great supporter of the pantry. She donated cases of Bella Pasta to the pantry weekly. She was also an important cameo participant in the Tom Pacheco Concert, Gioia Timpanelli’s Storytelling Production, and Father’s John’s story. All of these events will be covered in future posts.
During the days after the fall of the economy in 2008, I learned to categorize the hungry in many ways: artists, crazy poor, elderly poor, employed poor, generational poor, homebound, homeless, ill poor, infant poor, messed-up poor, musicians, newly poor, poets, resource poor, situational poor, transient poor, underemployed poor, unemployed poor, veterans, writers.
I learned that different congregations had differing attitudes toward these people. They ranged from “There shouldn’t even be foot pantries” to “the hungry will be fed. But not the unworthy hungry”.
In all instances I followed the direction of the Food Bank that “the hungry will be fed”. Period. Not long after I became the coordinator, I learned of a rule handed down by the Hunger Prevention Nutrition Assistance Program (HPNAP). I learned that, among other duties, it was my job to see that the pantry offer a 3-day supply of food without exception to the worthy and the unworthy hungry. Whatever. It didn’t matter.
Thank you for reading this blog/book and this post. In the next post, I’ll begin a series of posts about homelessness in the pantry.
Thurman Greco
Woodstock, NY
