The Food Coming to Our Pantry from the Food Bank Has Been Diverted From a Landfill
There’s absolutely no excuse for anyone in our great country to go hungry.
The third category was Donated Food. This was usually canned or boxed food in really good condition which manufacturers couldn’t sell or supermarkets had overstocked.
All the cans had labels in good condition and none of the cans were dented.
Popular donated items included Barilla Pasta, Breyer’s Ice Cream, Cheez-It Crackers, Chobani Yogurt, Hellman’s Mayonnaise, Hunt’s Products, Kellogg’s Cereals, Lipton Teas, Nestea, Pepsi products, Progresso Soup, Suave Shampoos, Tide soap, Triscuit Crackers, V-8 Juices.
Co-op was the fourth category. The food in this category was offered at more or less grocery store prices. Coop food supplements the donated food inventory. The Coop food enables the Food Bank to have an inventory which meets the needs of the agencies. Except for toilet paper and eggs, I rarely bought from this category because our pantry simply couldn’t afford the costs. Even so, the eggs were a few cents cheaper than anywhere else and the toilet paper was important to the households with no funds.
Eggs were always a challenge. They’re only available through the pantry in the Co-op section of the catalogue. They were rarely in the refrigerator case at the Food Bank when we went for produce and dairy products weekly. Purchasing the eggs locally was hard because we needed about 150-200 dozen eggs at a time. My main source when we couldn’t connect with the food bank was Aldi. They were about the only store that really didn’t care how many dozen eggs we bought. Price Chopper in Saugerties was a real lifesaver a couple of times also.
One winter I was having a really tough time getting soup. Then, Progresso donated a large load of soup to the Food Bank. Hurrah! After hurricane Sandy, ConAgra sent a generous load of canned goods to the food bank. To this day, two favorite words in my vocabulary are Progresso and ConAgra.
Thanks for reading these Food Bank posts. I hope they’re answering questions for you. Tomorrow’s post will begin with a discussion of dumpster diving and months when we had almost nothing.
Peace and food for all.
Thurman Greco
Woodstock, NY
Bonnie, Michelle, Nora and the Salvage Food Order at The Food Bank
In yesterday’s post, I started the monthly order.
In a good month, I ordered 16 cases each of a large variety of canned/boxed goods: peanut butter, canned beans, canned refried beans, canned green beans, pasta, and oatmeal for example.
In a bad month, I would only be able to get my allotment of a couple of things: tomato sauce, and dried plums, for example.
Bonnie, my primary contact for the Food Bank food orders, spent time telling me politely on Monday and Tuesday that most of what I wanted was already out of stock. As the week progressed, the outlook usually improved. By Friday, some of the stock had been replenished, new merchandise was on the shelves and the order was as good as it was going to get. Michelle and Nora were also available when Bonnie’s line was busy.
These 3 women, Bonnie, Michelle, and Nora, spent their work days on the phone listening to desperate pantry coordinators, soup kitchen managers, shelter directors, ordering food. While they were assisting an agency person on the phone there was always a list of people waiting for their turn to add their needs to the day’s list.
Generally, food items were depleted as fast as they came on the computer screen. That’s why we called throughout the week. Nothing was ever available for more than a day or 2.
“We just got in a shipment of USDA” was music to my ears.
Then would come the order for salvage bulk food categories. These were banana boxes filled with 40 pounds of canned/boxed/bottled foods in specific categories such as fruits and vegetables, condiments, juices, pantry, soup, etc. As a pantry, I was able to get this food at 16 cents per pound. These boxes were wonderful. They were wonderful to me, anyway.
In reality, they were something else altogether.
Salvage food is made up of the dented cans and crumpled boxes that are pushed aside at the grocery store.
They are either collected at the store and brought over by the store itself to the Food Bank or a Food Bank truck drives around picking the food up and taking it to the Food Bank. Food Bank volunteers clean and sort these items. Salvage boxes offer variety to pantries, soup kitchens, and shelters. This is where we get the occasional spice or herb, can of olive oil, box of cooking chocolate, jar of pickles.
Another favorite refrain I liked to hear from Bonnie or Michelle was “I can let you have 5 boxes of pantry today.” Once I was able to order 24 boxes of salvage products. I felt like I was being rewarded by the universe for something I must’ve done right. I never quite figured out what it was that I did. But this I know: life was beautiful that week.
Thanks for reading this post.
There is absolutely no excuse for anyone in our country to go hungry.
Peace and Food for all.
Thurman Greco
Woodstock, NY
Peace and food for all.
Thurman Greco
Woodstock, NY
Paul Shultis, Jr., and The Men of Woodstock and 4 Categories of food
In the last post Gene Huckle suggested that I go to a Woodstock Town Board meeting and try to get a truck.
So I did. I went to a Town Board meeting and asked the Town to drive a truck over and pick up the food for the pantry. What did I have to lose, right? Well, that request went nowhere. However, townspeople responded. Calls came in from area residents. And several volunteered monthly.
After that, I would put an item in the “Woodstock Times” newspaper on the week before the shipment arrival asking for volunteers. People just showed up at the Hannaford’s.
Paul Shultis, Jr., became a “regular”. He showed up every month driving a heavy duty pickup with a trailer attached to the rear. His rig could carry 4,000 pounds easy. I loved, loved, loved the sight of that rig coming up to the pantry door filled with food. Paul Shulti, Jr., took time off from work every month so he could caravan the food from the Hannaford’s to the pantry.
We would never in a million years have been able to get the food to the pantry without the generosity and dedication that Paul and the townspeople showed as they arrived at the Hannaford’s parking lot every month.
Each month I spent the week before the delivery day calling the Food Bank daily to place the food order. I started the order on Monday and then added to it throughout the week. On Monday I ordered food from four different categories:
USDA
Donated Foods
Salvage Food
Coop Food
I ordered everything I could get from the free United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) food first. The USDA food is part of the government’s farm subsidy program which includes, among other things, distributing excess food to the hungry.
The next post will focus on how the Food Bank works to get the food for us.
Thanks again for reading this blog/book.
Peace and food for all.
Thurman Greco
Woodstock
I ordered
Bringing it Home to the Food Pantry – Part 1
“Their income is going down while food costs are not.”-William S. Simon
Beginning with this post, the next few posts will focus on how the food actually gets to the pantry from the Food Bank. This is a huge part of the coordinator’s job. Also, whenever anyone speaks to me about the food pantry, the question they always ask first is “Where does the food come from? How do you get it to the pantry?”
What follows is the answer.
Once it became obvious that the 3-day rule directed by Hunger Prevention Nutrition Assistance Program (HPNAP) was pretty much here to stay. I began to try to get the food to the pantry. After all, a 3-day supply of food for everyone in the household is a far cry from a can of tuna, a box of cereal, and a jar of peanut butter.
The bottom line here is that the whole pantry was turned upside down. I placed an order every month from the Food Bank. The Food Bank of Northeastern New York has a monthly delivery route throughout its territory and our shipment arrived in the parking lot behind the Hannaford’s in the Kingston Plaza Shopping Center on a prearranged Tuesday morning, usually on the third Tuesday,. We had a standing 9:15 a.m. appointment.
I began asking individuals at the different congregations to help bring over the food from Kingston. Every month was a new beginning because I was relying on whatever congregation had volunteers in the pantry each month. I asked Carmen Adler, my contact at Christ Lutheran Church, to help me one month. One volunteer showed up to help. Although he was willing to help, he had a bad back and his pickup had faulty brakes. I knew I had to do something.
Gene Huckle dropped by the pantry. “What you need is a truck, Thurman. Go to a Town Board meeting and ask the town to send a truck over to Kingston for the food. Delivery day takes only a couple of hours of truck time each month. Surely there’s an available truck somewhere.”
Go Gene!
In the next post, we’ll find out what happened with the truck and begin to understand how I ordered the food.
Thanks for following this blog/book.
There is absolutely no excuse for anyone in our great nation to go hungry,
Peace and food for all.
Thurman Greco
Woodstock, NY
In the Food Pantry Blog – It’s All About Respect – Part 2
For the followers of the Buddhist, Hindus, and other Eastern religions, feeding the hungry is about selfless service. The pantry had a few practicing Buddhists and one practicing Hindu.
Jo, a Buddhist from Palden Sakya, sometimes came on Wednesday evenings at 6:00 to help bag the bread which Prasida brought from the Bread Alone bakery in Boiceville. Most of the time we had 2 or 3 volunteers to help but occasionally Jo would just bag the bread herself. Stuart Kline sometimes came to help her. When no one was available to help, she didn’t complain, criticize, or appear to judge. Occasionally, if there was time after she packed the bread, she grabbed a broom and swept.
The Hindu, Prasida, was a strong woman of Polish descent. She felt nothing weighed too much for her to carry and no task was too large or too small. Prasida started the day on Wednesday at 6:00 a.m. by driving our truck, Miriam’s Well, to Latham for food. At the Food Bank, she shopped and selected about 2,000 to 3,000 pounds of produce: lettuce, tomatoes, potatoes, onions, baked goods, yogurt, local cheese, fresh milk, mushrooms, carrots, anything organic she could find. She loaded it onto the truck. Then drove back to Woodstock where she unloaded the food off the truck and hauled it into the pantry. After that, she went with Tall Thin John, Bad Back Bob, and Guy Oddo to Woodstock Commons to distribute food there to the residents.
Then, as if that wasn’t enough, Prasida hustled back to the pantry and opened it up promptly at 3:00 as she signed in 200-300 people for the pantry.
Then, about 4:15, Prasida turned her desk job over to Guy and drove off down the road to Bread Alone in Vanessa with Ann King to get the bread. She returned exactly at 6:00 with the Dodge Grand Caravan packed to the roof with freshly baked bread.
Then, Prasida unloaded the bread, and resumed her desk job until the pantry closed at 7:00, when she cleaned the floors. WHEW
Having watched volunteers from the three religions in action, I truly believe the Jews, Buddhists, and Hindus are more active in their approach. I never once heard one Jew, Buddhist, or Hindu try to turn people away or refer to the “unworthy hungry”. “Unworthy hungry” is a term I first heard from a local Lutheran Minister. I learned very quickly in the game that area Methodists, Episcopalians, Catholics, and Dutch Reformed followers were familiar with the label.
So, I suppose that my feeling is that the Jews, Buddhists, and Hindus have owned the concept of “feeding the poor” since the beginning of time. Christians picked up on the “feeding the poor” concept that Jesus taught.
With the next few posts, we’ll focus on the most asked about part of pantry management: where the food comes from.
Thank you for reading these posts in this blog/book. Pantries are hidden away places that more people need to know about.
Peace and food for all.
Thurman Greco
Woodstock
Homelessness and Mental Illness: A Comment on Nicholas Kristoff’s Blog
I sent the following letter to Mr. Nicholas Kristoff in response to his Feb. 9, 2014, story in the New York Times about mentally ill inmates in jails.
Dear Mr. Kristoff:
While you were describing the plight of these incarcerated people, I submit to you that the people illustrated in your story are the lucky ones.
As a coordinator of a food pantry in Ulster County, New York, I interact with mentally ill people every time the pantry is open.
It’s difficult for a mentally ill person to navigate in our culture. Many of them end up homeless. On January 31, 2014, we were out in 9 degree weather doing a Point in Time Census of homeless people for HUD. We went under bridges, behind the mall in Kingston, to the cemetery, into abandoned buildings, etc.
Not everyone who is homeless is standing on the street with a sign and a cup. Every time I walk down a street now anywhere, I see inconspicuous and unnoticed homeless people. The sidewalks and streets of America have become one large ward for the mentally ill.
Homelessness accompanies a number of mental illnesses including schizophrenia and bipolar disorders. Mentally ill persons have a tendency to become chronically homeless. According to a HUD definition, a person who’s been homeless at least 4 times in the past 3 years or who has been homeless for more than 1 year, is considered homeless. It’s believed by MentalIllnessPolicy.org that there are over 250,000 seriously mentally ill homeless persons in our country.
The bottom line here is that many people are living on the streets coping not only with the problems of homelessness but also the mental illness they are afflicted with. While a seriously mentally ill person is trying to survive on the streets dealing with things like dumpster diving for food, s/he is also dealing with being robbed, beaten, etc. And, finally, s/he is not being treated for disease.
My conclusion: better to be in jail.
Peace and food for all.
Thurman Greco
Everytime I Walk Down a Street Now, Anywhere, I See, Inconspicuous and Unnoticed, Homeless People.
One young man was allowed to come into the pantry and take pretty much whatever he wanted when he shopped because he was so far in another world that we couldn’t communicate with him. This was a very sad situation for me. This young man, blonde, appeared to be in his late 20’s and had a beautiful face and demeanor. About the closest we could come to describing his hair was dreadlocks.
His mother also shopped at the pantry. Sometimes, when he was off his meds, he was just so far gone that we couldn’t talk with him. Somehow, she would get him back on the meds and he would be easier to communicate with. We went through these cycles with him. He would go along for several months on his medication and then quit taking it.
According to the National Institutes of Mental Health, 25 per cent of American adults suffer from a diagnosable mental disorder. These mental disorders are the leading cause of disability in our country according to the NIMH.
Research tells me that over 40% of the homeless population includes people with disabilities. My observations of shoppers in the pantry seems to confirm this statistic which I got from disabilityscoop.com.
The disabled homeless person appears to live below the poverty line.
That’s because those receiving SSI payments are really getting a very small amount of money each month. There’s just not enough money for a person to live on if s/he includes a rent payment. There’s also the employment factor for those with disabilities. There are fewer jobs and the jobs pay less. The old term “last hired, first fired” applies here.
The next post will include a copy of a letter to Nicholas Kristoff.
After that post, we’ll be returning to the pantry room with several posts about the pantry itself.
Thanks for reading this blogged book.
Peace and food for all.
Thurman Greco
Woodstock
Not All Homeless People Sit On The Sidewalk With Signs And a Cup – Not In Woodstock, Anyway
It’s estimated that 10% of households visiting pantries are homeless. Most shelter clients have no other place to live. Many of them have jobs but simply don’t make enough to pay rent. It’s estimated that 24% of soup kitchen clients have no home.
Occasionally this gets a little complicated. One shopper came into the pantry as a homeless person. “I live in my car” he said. (How? Here it is February and the temperature goes below freezing every night).
“My wife is pregnant. We’ve got her in a women’s shelter. I’m working 2 jobs to get the money together for the baby.”
SHELTERED HOMELSSS are those living in a supervised publicly or privately operated shelter designated to provide temporary living arrangements (including shelters, transitional housing and hotels/motels paid for by charitable organizations or by Federal, State, or local Government programs.
UNSHELTERED HOMELESS are those individuals or families living with a primary nighttime residence that is a public or private place not designated for or ordinarily used as a regular sleeping accommodation for human beings including cars, parks, campgrounds, abandoned buildings, bridges, etc.
CHRONIC HOMELESS are those who have been homeless at least 4 times in the past three years. Or, they have been homeless for more than a year.
Thanks for reading this blog/book.
In the next few posts we’ll examine the plight of the mentally ill homeless persons.
Peace and food for all.
Thurman Greco
Meet a Few of Your Woodstock Neighbors
One shopper always visits the pantry without shoes. “Take these bags and wrap them around your feet.” instructs Guy Oddo each time he comes by.
At first, we were made uncomfortable by this situation. However, over time, most of us adjusted to Shoeless Joe’s situation and realized this is just (ho hum), another pantry event. Once we became more comfortable with the situation, he did too.
The female homeless shopper is in a special category because most of them take such care with their skin and hair. Where do they shampoo their hair?
And, of course, the homeless family is, for me, so tragic. It’s hard enough for a homeless man or woman to keep clean but what about the kids, the baby? How do they do it? And, yet, the families come into the pantry looking the best they possibly can to shop for their three-day supply of food.
We had one family, a mother, father, 3 children, who lived in a small camper throughout one summer. They were living at a campground and doing their weekly shopping at the pantry.
One week the mother related: “I’m really stressed out today. I don’t know where we’re going to go. We got evicted because I don’t have the money to pay the camping fee. The lady next to us gave me $5 for gas because we had to leave.”
I don’t know what happened to them. I never saw them again.
Thanks for reading this blog. There are many, many stories to share here.
Peace and food for all.
Thurman Greco
Woodstock, NY
Everyone is Different – at Least in Woodstock, Anyway: 26 Reasons For Homelessness
For a time, our trusted Gene Huckle was even homeless. His partner, Nancy died and her children didn’t want him in the house he and Nancy had lived in together for many years. He fought them for over a year with a lawyer, several trips to court and the whole enchilada. He finally moved out and ended up homeless for a time. Gene eventually got housing through a homeless veterans program. I helped him move his clothes and things over to his new apartment in Saugerties.
Homelessness cannot be generalized. Each homeless person is a special personality and has a special situation which s/he deals with. So here’s my rule about homeless people:
if you’ve seen one homeless person, you’ve seen one homeless person.
They come to be homeless for many reasons:
abusive relationship
addiction
being kicked out of home or feeling unwanted at home
decline in available public assistance
domestic violence
eviction
family breakdown
gambling
home foreclosure
lack of affordable child care for low income families
lack of affordable health care
lack of availability of suitable housing
lack of employment opportunities
lack of ongoing support services
loss of benefits
mental illness
overcrowding
poor or no communication tools to include cell phone, computer access, physical address for receiving mail
poor credit
poor or no transportation
release from jail/prison
release from military service
sexual abuse
significant illness in the family
substance or drug abuse
lack of affordable childcare for poor working families
Thank you for reading this post. In the next post, we will learn about yet another homeless person and a homeless family.
Peace and food for all.
Thurman Greco
Woodstock
