Hunger Is Not a Disease

What Hunger Looks Like in Woodstock

POLITICIANS THIS YEAR POSTURE ABOUT CUTTING BENEFITS AND INFRASTRUCTURE SPENDING TO PRESERVE OUR NATION.    Newspaper and magazine articles regularly discuss how we now have more super wealthy CEOs and individual Americans than we have ever had before.  The growing number of poor is largely ignored.

More Americans live at or below the poverty line than ever before in the history of our country according to a Feeding America survey.  Where do these people come from?  They come from the poor and middle classes.

THEY MAKE UP A NEW GROUP:  THE STRUGGLING POOR.

In September, 1990, when the Good Neighbor Food Pantry opened, President Bush and Soviet President Gorbachev met in Helsinki to discuss the Persian Gulf crisis.  Only 13.5% of our nation’s people lived below the poverty line.  That percentage represented about 33.5 million people according to infoplease.com.  Today, it’s estimated that 15% of Americans live at or below the poverty line.  That number is about 46.2 million.

AS THE COORDINATOR OF A SMALL TOWN FOOD PANTRY, I SAW THE SHOPPER CENSUS CLIMB FROM TWENTY-FIVE PERSONS PER WEEK PRIOR TO 2008 TO 500 PER WEEK BY 2013.

For years, the pantry served mostly single homeless men and Woodstock’s colorful characters on Thursdays.  By the time we were serving over 500 people weekly, we were giving a three-day-supply of food to families, households, and individuals in many categories:  artists, crazy poor, elderly poor, generational poor, homebound, homeless, ill poor, infant poor, messed-up poor, musicians, poets, newly poor, resource poor, situational poor, struggling poor, terminally ill poor, transient poor, underemployed poor, unemployed poor, veterans, writers.

AS TIME PASSED, I SAW MORE AND MORE HARD WORKING PEOPLE STRUGGLE WITH THE REALITY OF NOT HAVING ANY FOOD MONEY AFTER THEY PAID THE RENT AND BOUGHT GAS TO GET TO THEIR MINIMUM WAGE JOBS.   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.  Traumatized people came in when their homes were foreclosed or destroyed because of Hurricane Irene and Superstorm Sandy.

On a more personal level I met alcoholics, artists, child abusers, children, crazies, the disabled, druggies, drunks, elderly men and women, hardworking people juggling two and three jobs, homeless, mentally ill, messed-up people, musicians, people battling terminal illness, politicians, schizophrenics, thieves, veterans, Woodstock’s colorful characters, writers,  various church people, and pantry volunteers.

When I meet with other professionals in the food pantry industry, we all agree that we’ve never seen anything as bad as now.  Don Csaposs, a retired board member of the Food Bank of Northeastern New York recently described our situation very aptly when he said:  “We are living in an upside down world.”

NOW, IN 2014, POLITICIANS PONTIFICATE ABOUT THE POOR:  LAZY, IRRESPONSIBLE.

The average wait for a three-day-supply of food (which must be stretched to last a week) in the pantry hallway is almost an hour.  The building committee allows no chairs for the shoppers to sit on.  In the winter, there is no heat in the building except for the body heat generated by people crowded in the hallway.

AND, THIS WAIT IS ONCE THEY ARE INSIDE THE BUILDING.    Many wait outside for an hour or so in freezing weather, snow, sleet, rain, 100 degree heat, before the pantry opens.  It doesn’t matter.  The three-day-supply of food is gone and they have no money for more.

The three-day limit is a Hunger Prevention Nutrition Assistance Program (HPNAP) guideline.  And, it’s a practical one.  The fresh produce distributed isn’t going to last much more than three days because it’s been diverted from a landfill on its way to the pantry.

While receiving a three-day supply of food, they are doing without a lot:  salt, pepper, sugar, flour, fresh milk, cooking oil, coffee.

Often these people, like members of the Flores family work seven days a week – every week.  Every family member has more than one job.  They manage to bring in enough funds to pay the rent for a cramped apartment and to buy gas.

No insurance.

No food.

No clothes.

WHEN I THINK ABOUT IT, I REALIZE EVERYTHING THEY GET IS RECYCLED:

The apartment they rent is old and rundown.

Their pickup is definitely used.

The clothing is donated to Family by people who no longer plan to use it.

THE FOOD, LIKEWISE, IS RECYCLED.

The produce, dairy, and bread is all definitely on its way to the landfill when it gets diverted and sent to the Food Bank, then on to our pantry.

The canned goods are diverted at the grocery store from the landfill.  Cans are dented, outdated.   Some have no labels.

The boxed goods are the worst…especially the crackers.  A box of crackers is often a box of cracker crumbs.

NO MATTER, PEOPLE ARE GRATEFUL FOR WHAT THEY GET.   It’s better than nothing and no one ever complains.

On behalf of the Flores family and other pantry shoppers, I thank you for reading this blog/book.  This blog is their story…one that desperately needs to be told.

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Please send a comment.

Peace and food for all.

Thurman Greco