And Now…the Drive After the Food Drive: Items of Dignity!
People needing to use a food pantry because they don’t have enough $$$, certainly don’t have resources for things like toothpaste, shampoo, razors, tampons, and other Items of Dignity.
There is something we can do about this little-known situation:
Hold an Items of Dignity drive. Actually, this is easier than a food drive because everyone seems to know what an item of dignity is.
People know what food is too, but some get confused about what is a good food item for a pantry. What about fresh produce? Is frozen food okay? are often asked questions during a food drive.
Items of Dignity don’t get stale. They don’t need refrigeration.
Actually, you hold an Items of Dignity drive the same way you hold a food drive: Gather your bags together, write your letter, and put them out in front of houses in the neighborhood you choose.
For more information about holding a food drive, please check out the last two posts. They reveal all the secrets.
When you donate these items to your chosen food pantry, the volunteers will be delighted.
If you are worried about having an Items of Dignity drive because the people may not need the items, don’t bother to worry. Right now, in our country, hunger reaches into all communities. Hunger is affecting people who never thought they would ever need food.
The items you collect and donate will be greatly appreciated.
Thank you in advance for all you are doing.
Thank you for reading this blog post. Please refer it to your preferred social media network. Share it with a friend, neighbor, relative.
Thurman Greco
www.thurmangreco.com
www.hungerisnotadisease.com.
P.S. Please let me know how your food drive is going.
Do These 3 Things After Your Food Drive.
Congratulations! You had a food drive!
Your work isn’t done yet. Now is a good time to think about your next food drive. It will be easier and more fun than the last one because you know more about your tasks!
When you organize for the next food drive, you’ll get to see how your last one worked.
Step 1
Celebrate your goal. Did you have anyone helping you?
This is a good time to go out for a pizza or ice cream. Enjoy what you did and discuss how you helped your community as well as yourselves!
Pat yourself on your back.
Step 2
A few weeks after your food drive, check in with the food pantry or other group who received all your collections.
Were the foods you collected useful?
Were you able to get enough of one item for the group to have a surplus?
What foods would have been appreciated which were not collected?
How can you improve your future food drives?
Step 3
Now is a good time to plan your next food drive!
design a fact sheet that lists some foods that are needed. (The agency you
donated the food to may already have one you can use).
Write and send out a press release about your food drive and plans for the next one.
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media network.
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Thurman Greco
Woodstock, New York
https://hungerisnotadisease.com
5 Easy Steps to Your Successful Food Drive
It’s easier than you think.
Step 1:
Choose the food pantry, homeless shelter, school, church, food bank, or soup kitchen to receive the food you collect.
Step 2:
Contact your recipient, and learn what items the hungry people need. Try to be specific. Can they only accept canned food items or can they use frozen and fresh foods? What about pet food?
If they need pet food or food for homeless people, for example, request those items (with specific food item suggestions) at your drive.
Step 3:
Decide how you want to collect the donated food.
The method I prefer is, of course, the one that worked for me several times. I recommend this method:
Gather some large empty grocery bags in good condition.
Attach a letter to each one saying something like:
Dear Neighbor:
“We are having a food drive in this neighborhood. Please fill this bag with food and set it out on your entryway on ………………………….. when it will be picked up between 00:00 and 00:00. Include am and pm to be more specific.
We need the following kinds of food:……………………..
Your donated food will be donated to ……………………………… Thank you for your generosity. If you have any questions, please call…………………………………. Signed…………………………………….”
Set the bags out at every address in the area you selected.
On the appointed date, return to the addresses and pick up the bags of food.
Step 4:
Deliver them to the selected food pantry, homeless shelter, school.
Step 5:
Pat yourself on your back. You did a great job!
My experience with this food drive method is that people respond positively because you give them bags, tell them exactly what food items you need, and return to pick up the food at a specific time on an exact date.
Thank you in advance for all you are doing to feed your neighbors.
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Have a wonderful day!
Thurman Greco
www.hungerisnotadisease.com
Food Pantry Rules
A food pantry is what it is because of three things:
the economic situation at the moment
the volunteers
the people who shop there.
The people come together looking for groceries but often, they want and need far more.
While the coronavirus pandemic rages, the food pantry lines get longer every pantry day because people, families, deal with change they didn’t ask for.
In short, they are rewriting their destiny stories without a road map or instructions.
A number of the people in the pantry, both shoppers and volunteers, didn’t know about food pantries until circumstances set up a situation where they suddenly looked around a room and realized where they were.
There is a name for their category – SITUATIONAL POOR.
A person fits into the situational poor category when s/he lands in a situation created by an event such as a hurricane, fire, floor, pandemic, or other disaster which destroys the home, car, job.
Pantries offer much – peace, community, spiritual connection, groceries. I always think of a food pantry in the basement of a church as a cross between a church service and a busy pizza place.
A food pantry, and those connected with it, are not a program. They are a community. As volunteers, all we really do is open the door. As all the hungry people walk through the door, they undergo a change somehow.
Each person in a pantry, in whatever capacity, has experienced rejection in some way – too young, too old, too crazy, too sick, too poor, not poor enough.
The food pantry experience does not heal a person, nor does it change the story.
The food pantry experience does not offer therapy.
The food pantry is, instead, a conduit for each person’s own healing.
FOOD PANTRY RULES
Sign your name in the register as you enter the pantry.
Find a place in line.
Do not crowd or block the door to the pantry room.
No more than 2 shoppers are allowed in the pantry at one time.
No more than one new shopper is allowed in the pantry at one time.
Shop for a three-day supply of food for everyone in your household.
Place your selections on the table as you shop.
Respect the restrictions on certain foods.
Finish your shopping in 10 minutes.
Once you begin to bag your groceries, do not continue to shop.
Because the food availability is different each time you shop, it is best to visit the food pantry weekly.
Thank you.
Thurman Greco
P.S. The rules may be different at the pantry where you shop. Each food pantry is different. The space is different. The times the pantry is open is different. The management is different.
These specific rules were used in the food pantry I managed where the people were many, the space small, and the hours few.
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Winter Solstice – 2020
December 21st is the Winter Solstice for 2020.
The Winter Solstice is the annual celebration of the yearly rebirth of the sun.
Please take a few moments today to send healing, acceptance, regeneration, and rebirth to all living beings – both plant and animal.
Visualize a world in which all living beings have enough food and water to nourish themselves into wellness in 2021.
Take a moment to release those things which no longer positively serve our planet and its inhabitants.
Find a few minutes sometime today to reflect on our planetary needs. Reflect on how it will feel to live on a healthy planet where all beings experience wellness and coexist to honor and support one another.
Thank you for your healing thoughts and prayers.
Thurman Greco
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Situational Poor
SITUATIONAL POOR – A person fits into a situational category of poverty when s/he lands in a situation created by an event such as a hurricane, fire, flood, pandemic, or other disaster which destroys the home, job, car.
Food pantries, food banks, soup kitchens are overworked in today’s pandemic world. The line of hungry people grows every time the place opens.
It’s bad enough that the line grows weekly. But, worse, many people in the line are confused, afraid. The never thought they would find themselves in a food pantry line with hundreds of other hungry, confused, afraid.
How should they act? What should they do?
What do they do with the food, once they get it home? It may be good food – both delicious and nutritious. However, it may not be anything recognizable. More often than not, pantry food doesn’t come with recipes. Super markets carry thousands of items. Food pantries carry maybe 50 different items and the labels on the cans and boxes aren’t even recognizable. The fresh produce may be organic but not be labeled as such.
So, now that the pantry food is in its new found kitchen, there is a big adjustment period involved in getting it to the table.
We are not so far removed from those people in the food pantry. They are our neighbors, friends, co-workers, relatives, classmates.
And, truth be told, we are all confused, and afraid.
Even though you may not be in the line, there are definitely things you can do. For starters, send a check to a food pantry, soup kitchen, or food bank in your area. If you don’t know where to send the check, look up an organization called:
Feeding America.
Feeding America is glue holding the food pantry world together. If that doesn’t work for you, search out: Regional Food Bank of Northeastern New York.
The Regional Food Bank of Northeastern New York, along with the Food Bank of the Hudson Valley, do an amazing job of making delicious, nutritious foods available to those who need it most.
These two food banks are only two in a large network of food banks located throughout the country. If you seeking a feeding facility in another part of the country, these organizations can guide you to one in the area best for you.
If you are uncomfortable sending money, this might be a good time to organize a food drive.
I wrote three action guides which list suggestions and options which are easy-to-understand and read. You can get these action guides free. Email me your mailing address and I’ll get your copies in the mail right away. I’m not even charging postage and handling.
Email me your mailing address to thurmangreco@gmail.com.
The guidelines and suggestions are practical. I feel confident you’ll discover practical things you can do to help on one of the action guides.
Thank you for caring.
Thanks for reading this article. Please refer it to your preferred social media network.
Thurman Greco
Woodstock, New York
Hungry and Homeless Now
The food pantry is closed for business and will not open today.
Where will the hungry and homeless go now?
It’s Wednesday, the pantry day in Woodstock. Weekly, the food pantry attracts several hundred hungry and homeless people to the basement of a local church where they experience community, gratitude, healing, and a three-day-supply of shared food. The isolation often felt by hungry and homeless people is softened in the pantry. One thing the soul longs for is connection.
As people travel down their life path to the pantry, they lose things. One of the most soul-strangling downsides of this new-found simplicity is isolation experienced as people become cut off from their community. This experiences always changes reality.
When people no longer fit in, their voices become smaller and smaller and smaller until, finally, all is silent.
The rule is this: As the community for the hungry and homeless diminishes, so diminishes the support system.
All things are connected and intertwined but we have a difficult time remembering this when we are in our most alone circumstances in life. With assistance, we begin to recall our spiritual connections and know we are not along, not forgotten.
But, with the Coronavirus, this is very challenging. A few things are in play here.
First, for those needing to shelter in place, the main question is this: ” Where will I go?” Sofa surfing won’t happen anymore. The cemetery will work as long as it doesn’t snow or rain.
Second, a person without food can think of nothing else: “Where can I get food?”
For the hungry and homeless person in Woodstock, that focus is real because the food pantry closed.
At a time when the people need this food the most, the pantry is closed.
“Where can I get food?”
Thank you for reading this blog post!
Please refer it to your preferred social media network.
Thurman Greco
Woodstock, New York
Hunger and Healing for Ourselves and our Planet During this Spring Solstice
Throughout the month, and especially on March 19th, whenever you find a time and place that fits your schedule…sit quietly for a few moments and visualize a world where positive renewal and growth exists for all beings.
Invite adequate housing, nutritious food, and reliable quality healthcare to become a reality for all.
Plant spiritual seeds to nurture goals and dreams of everyone. Reflect on all the wonderful opportunities available in our world for growth and hope throughout our planet.
Spend a moment including goals for housing and food and healthcare for those who have insufficient resources
Honor the mystical and magical change of seasons creating space for the spiritual growth for everyone.
Check in with yourself now. Give your spirit the support it needs and seeks to bring housing, nutrition, and good health to everyone on our planet.
Quiet your mind as you bathe in this new energy created by spring. Invite universal balance, and abundance into our world.
May all beings on this planet live and thrive in peace and harmony.
Thank you for reading this Meditation.
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Thanks again
Thurman Greco.
What Inspires me in the Fight Against Hunger
Well, actually, it isn’t necessarily what. It’s more likely who. The first line of leadership inspiration is the hungry people in the food pantry line. A food pantry really is all about the people grappling with hunger.
But, where did this whole thing actually begin? For me, it all started with Robert F. Kennedy. In 1967, he traveled to Mississippi to see poverty and hunger for what it was. Being a wealthy man from a wealthy family, he actually had no idea.
Down there he saw hunger and poverty for what it was, not what he thought it should be. He saw people, elderly people, adults, children. He saw people with no jobs, no welfare, no surplus commodities, and no food stamps.
If the history books tell this story correctly, it was the children who got to him. He saw the hunger as it was. Seeing children hungry to the point of near starvation, Robert F. Kennedy came face-to-face with malnutrition.
Robert F. Kennedy was both moved and angry.
There is a book out there telling the story of their hunger. You may or may not ever have heard about this book. “So Rich, So Poor” was written by Peter Edelman.
In reading about Robert F. Kennedy, I read a paragraph which has meaning for me:
“All of us, from the wealthiest to the young children that I have seen in this country, in this year, bloated by starvation – we all share one precious possession, and that is the name American.
“It is not easy to know what that means.
“But in part to be an American means to have been an outcast and a stranger, to have come to the exiles’ country, and to know that he who denies the outcast and stranger still amongst us, he also denies America.”
Those words resonate with me. They may mean nothing to you. But, whether or not they have meaning for you, they are powerful words and they tell a story I see in the food pantry line.
I thank you for reading this blog post. I thank you for your interest in fighting hunger. I know that distributing food in a food pantry is not going to do away with hunger.
But, this I do know: Distributing food in a food pantry will keep the shoppers in that line from starvation for three days.
This is all I can do. This has to be enough until a better option comes along.
Thurman Greco
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