Hunger Is Not a Disease

Happy Holiday!

IMG_2648-150x150Traditionally, holidays revolve around a meal served at a food laden table.  People sit around the table, or several tables, eat too much delicious food and visit with relatives, friends, neighbors.  They swap stories; catch up on news.

FOR MORE AND MORE OF US, THIS JUST DOESN’T HAPPEN ANYMORE.    Households and individuals  find themselves unable to finance the expense of the holiday table:  the turkey, mashed potatoes, green beans, gravy, fruit salad, pies, cakes.

Not only can people not afford the food, more and more people no longer have the table to sit at, the chairs to sit on, and the stove to cook the food.

THE RECIPES, POTS AND PANS, CHINA, SILVERWARE, CRYSTAL ARE LONG SINCE GONE.  Cooking without a kitchen is the way of the modern household living on a minimum wage.

With luck, today’s minimum wage household will have the gas to get to the soup kitchen.  Otherwise, it’s going to be a regular day with a meal prepared in a crock pot, electric skillet, toaster over, or hot plate.

For the pantry shopper, there’s an opportunity to get extra fruits and vegetables.  Some better connected pantries will offer canned hams or turkeys.

The first year a person uses a pantry for primary shopping,  Thanksgiving  is a challenge, a holiday gone wrong.  After several years, Thanksgiving becomes whatever the household can make of it.  The adjustment is, for some, difficult, and for others …more difficult.

The difficulty lies, mostly, in the ability to get food items considered “traditional” by a family when the money is simply not available to purchase the item in the grocery store.

AFTER SEVERAL YEARS AND SEVERAL HOLIDAYS, A NEW TRADITION EMERGES.  The food gatherer in the household becomes, if time allows, more skilled at scrounging for and gathering food at both the pantry and the grocery store.

If the household is composed of people with multiple jobs, if there are other issues:

transportation challenges

disabilities,

serious illness,

the effort is yet more difficult.

As time goes by, the person/household hopefully adjusts to the situation as the members transition from being situational poor to resource poor to struggling poor.

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If you want to send a donation, our address is:  Reservoir Food Pantry, P O Box 245, Boiceville, NY 12412.  Or, use the Donate Button on this blog.  Thank you in advance for your generosity.

Peace and food for all.

Thurman Greco

Do you shop at a Pantry? Do you work at a Pantry? Do you donate to a Pantry? – Part 3

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THIS SOUP HAS NOTHING IN IT BUT SALT.

At first, when I was just learning to be a pantry coordinator, I didn’t understand what was wrong.  We got in some soup  which everyone looked at, read the label, and left on the shelf.  So, I asked Barry to visit the pantry.

“WHAT’S THE DEAL WITH THIS SOUP?  Most of the people are leaving it on the shelf.  There’s only 6 different things they can take home here.   Why are they leaving the soup behind?”

“Well, it’s the nutritional content” he said, reading the label.  There’s no nutrition.  And, everyone knows too much salt is not good.”

I began to watch the shoppers reading the labels and I asked questions.  I got an earful of important information from people trying to live on pantry food.  I learned several important things:

THOSE SHOPPING IN A PANTRY HAVE LITTLE OR NO MONEY FOR HEALTH CARE/MEDICAL EXPENSES.  FOOD IS THE FRONT LINE OF DEFENSE FOR THOSE ON A LIMITED BUDGET.   The pantry food is, sometimes, nutritionally inadequate because

there may not always be enough of it

there may not be  enough fresh vegetables

everything is canned resulting in high sodium products

there is no real choice.

At the time, there were fewer than 10 items in the pantry to choose from which didn’t offer a shopper enough options to deal with dietary restrictions (celiac disease, hypertension, diabetes), personal preference, and enough variety to offer good nutritional selection.

As a new coordinator, I still didn’t yet know all my options and wasn’t comfortable with the Food Bank system yet.  This much I knew:

The food supply I had to choose from was then and is now supply driven instead of need driven.  In other words, I can’t order everything the pantry needs at a given time because it’s not always available.  Foods available at the Food Bank are donations from grocery stores, farms, food manufacturers.

MUCH  FOOD BANK FOOD IS DIVERTED FROM A LANDFILL.    In other words, it’s salvage.  I order food donated from test marketing disasters, crop overproduction, Food Bank food drives.

MOST FOOD COMING INTO OUR PANTRY ARE NUTRITIONALLY SOUND BECAUSE I WON’T ORDER IT IF IT ISN’T.  There are some issues with sodium and fat…but not many.

Several things happened in those early years that I coordinated the pantry.  They really helped:

The HPNAP people took a stand against too much salt which I got all excited about.  They issued guidelines forbidding agencies to use HPNAP funds to purchase foods have too many grams of salt per serving.

Gradually, as the economy declined, the HPNAP people added other nutritional improvements:

1% milk

Whole grain breads

Lean meats

A minimum 3 -day-supply of food for everyone in the household.

Fresh produce.

THESE GUIDELINES COMPLETELY CHANGED HOW THE PANTRY OPERATED AND WHAT WAS AVAILABLE.  IT WAS GLORIOUS!

The pantry offered very little junk food even though there was certainly a lot of it at the Food Bank.  The Food Bank accepts donations  but that doesn’t  mean I have to put the junk food on my pantry’s shelf.

These guidelines and availability are still a reality in the pantry world as our calendar approaches 2015.  I  leave the junk food off my orders so other coordinators can have it.

And, I’m still grateful for:

crop overproduction

Food Bank food drives

HPNAP guidelines

food that can be diverted from the landfill

generous bakeries

the Farm Stand

the Food Bank truck that’s making the rounds of the grocery stores, farms, food manufacturers so we can have their overage at our food pantry.

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Peace and food for all.

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Thurman Greco

 

 

Do you work at a pantry? Do you shop at a pantry? Do you donate to a pantry? – Part 2

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“Can I offer you some of this delicious celery?  I noticed you just walked past it.”

“THANKS, BUT I CAN’T CHEW IT.  I WISH I COULD.

A big challenge in the food pantry system is getting the food to the people that they can eat.  Many things come into play here:

Dietary preferences

Health conditions

Religious guidelines

One challenge hardly ever mentioned is whether or not a person has teeth.

Once the teeth are gone, many foods are just not edible for a person.  Take for example a simple food like bread.  Our pantry has always been proud to serve Bread Alone Bread.  Unfortunately, toothless people have trouble eating it.   It’s not soft enough.

There are many fruits and vegetables which a toothless person cannot eat:

celery

radishes

apples

Pantries offering client choice make life easier for both the pantry and the shopper because people take what they can use.

Another consideration in choosing food for pantry shelves is the homeless person.  The homeless person’s kitchen is in his/her shirt  pocket so the selection is limited to

peanut butter

protein bars

cheese

carrot sticks.

Foods for the homeless include items

which can be eaten raw,

which don’t need either refrigeration or cooking,

which can be  easily carried from place to place.

Once a person becomes homeless, s/he more or less automatically becomes hungry.  For many homeless, eating is a challenge repeated at  every meal.  Some food pantries knowingly or unknowingly are not homeless friendly because

of the bureaucracy of the paperwork (How does one prove which bridge s/he lives under?),

of the lack of foods on the shelves acceptable to the homeless,

and because pantry coordinators, church boards,  feel that food pantries are inappropriate for homeless people.

Whenever I ponder the obstacles to offering proper food to pantry shoppers, I find myself asking questions:

Why can’t:

food stamps be more generous?

wages be higher?

gas be cheaper?

rent be realistic?

Thank you for reading this blog/book.

Beginning with the next post, this blog’s articles  will be published on Tuesdays and Thursdays.  Please let me know how this new publishing format works for you.

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Peace and food for all.

Thurman Greco

 

Do you work at a pantry? Do you shop at a pantry? Do you donate to a pantry? – Part 1

 

IMG_2647-150x150HOW MUCH IS ENOUGH?

That question lives in the brain of every conscientious coordinator.  It’s impossible to plan for pantry needs with confidence.

Much depends on a coordinator’s attitude.  Some feel that all they need to do is get food on the shelves and if the food runs out, well, the food runs out and who cares anyway?

I NEVER BOUGHT THAT LINE.

The building committee of the Woodstock Reformed Church as well as some people in Woodstock felt it was my job to turn people away.  They didn’t want too many people in the building and they didn’t want them getting too much food.

“How dare you serve this kind of food to these people?”

“How dare you serve this much food to these people?”

Some people felt shoppers should be limited in how often they could visit the pantry.  Once weekly was considered  too often.  The idea was to prevent people from getting used to the idea of getting food at a pantry.

NO ONE SEEMED TO KNOW WHAT IT’S LIKE TO NOT HAVE ENOUGH MONEY FOR FOOD.

Fortunately for me and for the hungry, the Hunger Prevention Nutrition Assistance Program people stepped in with clear guidelines  which appeared gradually over several years:

2005 – We were expected to offer 1% milk.

2008 – Pantries were expected to operate the client choice program.

2009 – Whole grain breads and cereals are to be served.

New York State requires that food pantries serve a minimum 3-day-supply of food for everyone in the household.  This supply  includes food for 3 meals each day for the 3 days.  50% of the food is to be fruits and vegetables.  Each meal is to be composed of 3 of the 5 food groups.

Where pantries come up short in this scenario is the 3-day-supply deal.  If we offer a 3-day-supply of food weekly to a family who is home bound or who is totally out of food money, the  household will be taking a 3-day-supply of food and stretching it to 7.

If a person lives in an area with several pantries, it’s possible to visit 2 pantries for  a week’s worth of food.  This is  difficult for a family with no funds because it costs more gas to get to 2 pantries.  It’s also  time consuming.  A person doesn’t just run in to a pantry and pick up a few items.  Lines are long.  Waits are even longer.  At Reservoir Food Pantry, we try to keep waits to a minimum by opening as soon as the pantry is set up.  (This is usually about 1:00, even though the pantry opens at 2:00)

And what about the households in areas where the pantry only allows them to visit monthly?

“We don’t want these people depending on us for their food.”

“Pantries should only be available for occasional use.”

It’s extremely difficult to offer foods appropriate for everyone in a pantry.  This week in the Reservoir Food Pantry, we offered  the following choices:

1 cereal

raisins

instant mashed potatoes

canned beans

crackers

rice cakes

tomato base cooking sauce

canned fruit

canned vegetables

spaghetti

On the fresh side, we had eggplants, lemons, potatoes, kale, salad mix, papayas, bananas, onions. apples,  pears, squash.

Produce came from Migliorelli’s, Shandaken Gardens, Ulster Corps gleaning, and the Food Bank of Northeastern New York.

Bread came from Bread Alone.  Pies came from Meredith’s.

PANTRIES ARE CONCERNED WITH NUTRITION IN TERMS OF SALT, SUGAR, AND FAT.

Whether or not a pantry serves nutritious food depends on whether  the coordinator of the pantry knows anything about nutrition.  In a pantry, it’s often about choices.  If the coordinator doesn’t know or care about nutrition, the food can help keep an unhealthy person sick.

FOR EXAMPLE, MANY SHOPPERS AT RESERVOIR FOOD PANTRY ARE OVER 65.   Current statistics show that 1 in 7 seniors don’t even get enough food to eat.  When a senior doesn’t get enough to eat, s/he may get sick causing problems for the children and grandchildren.

Reservoir Food Pantry volunteers make an ongoing herculean effort to offer only the best produce to our shoppers.   Prasida and Francine drive to Latham every Monday morning and return with about 900-1000 lbs of fresh food – much of which is organic.

AN IMPORTANT FACT:  Reservoir Food Pantry is stocked with foods donated to the Food Bank and offered to us rather than foods that we selected.  100% of that food has been diverted from a landfill.  The code is expired.  Cans are dented. Labels are torn or missing.  It’s all been rejected at a grocery store somewhere.

When we can’t get something we need, we rely on fresh produce to fill the gap.  We’ll continue to do this as long as we have gas money to get to Latham.

SO WE HAVE A PROBLEM SIMILAR TO THAT OF OUR SHOPPERS.  .

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Peace and food for all.

Thurman Greco

 

 

 

 

The Food Bank of the Hudson Valley Needs our help!

 

GNP53For many years now, the Food Bank of the Hudson Valley has been supporting us…all of us:  agencies and the many hungry  people we serve.  All we  do is pick up the phone and ask.  The people at the Food Bank then come through with  help.

A vivid memory I have of this response:  After Superstorm Sandy, 10 semis arrived in the parking lot of St. John’s Roman Catholic Church on Route 375  over the space of a couple of weeks.  Each semi came packed to the roof with food for storm victims.  No questions asked.  All we did was tell the people and they came for much needed food.  Each delivery day there would be 80-100 households lined up.

I’m certain that we’ll get the same response after the next disaster.

Well, now is our chance to say “Thank You” to everyone at the Food Bank of the Hudson Valley.

Due to an extremely large donation of food, the FBHV needs our help sorting product so it can subsequently be distributed to the hungry and needy.

The Food Bank is now open 7 days a week to sort this food.   Can you say “Thank You”?   Can you show your support to the Food Bank of the Hudson Valley?

Call 845-534-5344 to set up an appointment to volunteer.  Bring your friends with you.  Come as a group.  Let’s get this food sorted!

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Peace and food for all.

Thurman Greco

 

 

But…are they hungry enough?

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The “Are They Hungry Enough” issue looms large in food pantry conflicts.  The fears boil down to this:

People are going to shop at the pantry when they actually have the $$$ to go to the grocery store.

Riffraff are going to take the pantry food and sell it.

These people wouldn’t need to come here if they managed their $$$ better.

VERY FEW PEOPLE ARE COMFORTABLE WITH THE CONCEPT THAT WE JUST GIVE THE FOOD AWAY…NO STRINGS ATTACHED.  The unspoken text is that the hungry, the struggling class, individually and as a group should be punished for being the downtrodden.

Sometimes when I try to sort the issues out in my head, I remember the chicken yard my grandmother had during World War II.  Occasionally, when a chicken would become sick, the other chickens would begin to peck at it.  If the chicken didn’t get well, it would be pecked to death.

WHEN WE ATTACK THE HUNGRY FOR NEEDING THE PANTRY, WE’RE LIKE THE CHICKENS PECKING THE WEAKEST ONE TO DEATH.

I welcome all shoppers.  They don’t have to be destitute although I see many destitute people nowadays.

Pantry shoppers routinely endure:

long lines

uncomfortable waiting conditions

lack of choice

WAITS OUTSIDE PANTRIES ARE USUALLY AN HOUR OR LONGER.   At the Reservoir Food Pantry, we advertise our hours as 2:00 to 5:30.  The doors actually open a little after 1:00 to a long line of people already waiting.

Shoppers  wait outside the tiny pantry whether it’s raining, snowing, or if there are broiling summer temperatures.  There is no shade outside our pantry…no protection from the elements.

They wait in this line for access to about 30 different food products.  Compare that to a trip to a super market with 10,000 or so items to choose from.

THE PANTRY EXPERIENCE IS THE END OF THE ROAD.   People  are out of $$$ and need something to eat. period.

And, finally, if I ever could take the attitude that hungry people must have done something wrong and don’t need that kind of food…I remember the first time I naively asked a child in line about Christmas.

SANTA DOESN’T COME TO FAMILIES THAT STAND IN A PANTRY LINE.

THAT IS PUNISHMENT ENOUGH.

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Peace and food for all.

Thurman Greco

 

 

Why are they hungry?

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RECENTLY UNEMPLOYED

They showed up in the pantry one Wednesday evening.   A man, his wife, her mother, two children.  A closely knit group,  it was this family against the world.   It was obvious to anyone in the room who looked that he loved his daughter.

“Welcome.  Come on in.  Go around the room…..” I gave them the usual spiel.  The whole family helped choose food.

As they were leaving, I handed them a flyer about the soup kitchen.  Off they went, flyer in hand, to have supper.

Wednesdays  became a ritual for them.  First, they came to the pantry and then they went to the soup kitchen for supper.

UNDEREMPLOYED/UNDERPAID

For me, she wins the medal for being the most underemployed/underpaid  person in Woodstock.

Capable.

Well educated.

Creative.

Industrious.

Beautiful.

Goal oriented.

Excellent people skills.

Talented.

Stuck in Woodstock and almost starving to death, she was evicted at one point and moved in with a friend.  She barely  makes it from day to day.

DEATH OF A SPOUSE

“I’m so grateful to be here today.  I have someplace to go – the pantry.  Fred died one year ago today ” she said.

“Thanks for coming by.”

“I just never knew how hard it would be to live alone.  I don’t want to go to my children.  The food I get here really helps my budget.”

FOOD STAMP CUTS

“Thurman, my stamps have been cut again.   I don’t know how I’m going to make it.

I have absolutely no money this month.  My car died and  I don’t know where I’m going to get the $$$ to fix it.  If I can’t get the $$$ to fix it,  I can’t buy a a new one.”

ILLNESS

“How are you doing today?”

“Well, I’m here.”  The man speaking was dying of a brain tumor.  The pain clearly marked his face.  “The tumor seemed to be getting larger this week.  I go down to the hospital  every week for the chemo and they check it out.”

“If you’re ever too tired to come to the pantry, call and we’ll deliver the food to you.”

“No” he said.  “I’m going to come to the pantry as long as I can – for the social interaction if nothing else.”

TO SUM THINGS UP, THEY (WE) ARE HUNGRY BECAUSE THEIR (OUR) INCOME, FROM WHATEVER SOURCE, IS NOT ENOUGH TO MEET THE HIGH COST OF LIVING AS A POOR OR DESTITUTE PERSON.

Pantry HND1

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Peace and food for all.

Thurman Greco

 

 

Walmart – November, 2014

 

This is our last tour at Walmart for the year.  We won’t be returning until the new year.

Friday was quite a day:  cold, damp, very light traffic.

When we sit at the table on the sidewalk in front of the store entrance, we make eye contact with every person coming in the door.  “Hi, we’re with the Reservoir Food Pantry, just asking for a donation of either money or food to feed the hungry.”

With 2 or more of us at the table, it’s hard to miss anyone.  People either give a donation, tell us they’ll give when they come out, or decline.

So, this was the scene as we greeted  donors Friday afternoon about 4:00.  Somehow, we missed one.   We didn’t even see her until she was upon us as she was leaving.  A slight young woman with shimmery blond hair which hung about shoulder length, she wore a flowing coat, almost a cape…a deeply red cape.

She surprised us as she came out the “in” door with a cart overflowing with food.  All of it had been carefully packed so that there were about 5 cans or boxes of food in each bag.

She parked her shopping cart at the side of our table as she quietly said “I hope you can use this food.”

Then, quickly…almost too quickly…she removed her hands from the cart, looked at us with a beautiful smile, and walked away.  She seemed to be almost floating.  Then, about 50 feet away from our table, she seemed to disappear in a mist that was surrounding her.

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Peace and food for all.

Thurman Greco

Who are the hungry?

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She arrived at the pantry to shop  one Wednesday evening just as we were closing.  “Thanks for being here.  I’m completely out of food and I’ve got 3 jobs.  It’s really hard to get to the pantry.  For all my jobs, I have absolutely no money and I have no time to eat if I do have food.”

Several states passed minimum wage legislation on November 4.  But there is still much more work which needs to be done.

OUR POLITICIANS ARE  DOING NO ONE A FAVOR BY NOT RAISING THE MINIMUM WAGE.

Minimum wage workers don’t make enough money even to buy food.  It takes 2 minimum wage jobs just to pay the rent.

HOMELESS PEOPLE ARE NOT ALL UNEMPLOYED.  It’s estimated that 10% of the homeless people are employed – they just don’t make enough money to pay rent.

When a person works at the minimum wage level s/he is not making a real contribution to society because there isn’t any money for healthcare.  When a minimum wage person becomes ill, the symptoms are ignored until things become so bad that a trip to the e.r. becomes necessary.

As few as 20  years ago, hourly workers made enough money to pay rent, buy food, get to work, pay taxes.

The value of the minimum wage has eroded and economic security has declined  to the point where economic inequality has increased.   People are no longer poor.  They are destitute.

Our country needs people who can make a contribution to our community, our state, our great nation.

Our country needs workers who make a wage high enough to buy food, pay rent, get clothing, and pay for medicine/medical bills, transportation, taxes.

So, here we all are at pantries all over this country – feeding people while politicians in Washington cut programs, causing poverty, and, in general, making things worse.

THERE IS NO EXCUSE FOR ANYONE IN OUR GREAT NATION TO GO HUNGRY.

Pantry HND 3

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Peace and food for all.

Thurman Greco

Thank you to Pieta and the Ulster County Board of Realtors Community Service Committee.

Pantry HND 3This letter is to  everyone at the Ulster County Board of Realtors Community Services Committee who offer ongoing support our food pantry throughout the year.

Specifically, thank you to:

Jean Semilof – Westwood Metes and Bounds

Pieta Williams – Halter Associates Realty

Mitch Rapaport, Margo O’Bourne, and Victoria Hoyt – Win Morrison

Grace Bowne, Dorcinda Knauth – Weichert Realtors, The Spiesman Group

Steve Hubbard – Steve Hubbard Real Estate

Gillian Harper – Wells Fargo Mortgage

Elizabeth Dolly Decker – Hello Dolly Real Estate

Michele Rizzi – Hudson Valley Federal Credit Union

Nan Potter – Potter Realty.

Pieta, you always make my day better when I came down the stairs to my home  and see a bag of goodies:  razors, shampoo, feminine hygiene products, tooth paste.  These are basics –  things  most of us  take for granted.

But, when a person shops at a pantry, nothing can be taken for granted.  People coming to the Reservoir Food Pantry have little and  need much.

At the Reservoir Food Pantry, we know  items of dignity are important to our shoppers, because these items are simply beyond the financial reach for many.    People sometimes go to a pantry when there is absolutely no money in the household.

This is true of all categories:

seniors

homeless

ill

unemployed.

Members of the Ulster County Board of Realtors Community Services Committee, you  have an ongoing awareness of the issues confronting poor and destitute people in Ulster County.  You demonstrate this throughout the year, as you generously give items of dignity for our pantry shoppers.

As Boiceville’s only pantry, we see a level of need  not obvious in a more urban setting.

Thank you to everyone at the Ulster County Board of Realtors.

Peace and food for all.

Thurman Greco

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