The Talk and 7 Convincing Talking Points
Think back to the time when you were a child. Life was less complicated then, for most of us. Occasionally your parents or grandparents had talks with you about life. Your mother, father, grandmother, teacher may have spoken to you about sex, money, God, doing right from wrong, not stealing. These talks were important.
Well, now you are an adult with your own life. Consciously or unconsciously, these talks shaped you and influence you to this day. The reality is that the person who took the time and effort to make you a successful adult may now be in need of a talk. It is entirely possible that this older person is quietly doing without the food necessary to lead a healthy life.
Why is this happening? Well, the answer may be easy. There are simply more days in the month than money. Many seniors in our country have outlived their pensions, savings, ability to hold down a job. The statistics tell us that one senior in seven does not get enough to eat. One way seniors can be helped is with SNAP.
1. 50+ seniors are eligible for SNAP. If you are a senior, please apply for these benefits your taxes have paid for. You worked all of your life, paid your taxes, contributed to the economy. It is now time for you to benefit from all of the contributions you made throughout your life..
2. SNAP helps you pay for the food you need to live a healthy life. When you eat healthier food, you can prevent and control some chronic health issues. This will lower your medical bills.
3. With SNAP you’ll have more $$$ each month.
4. SNAP is a debit card which offers you privacy. If you don’t want anyone to know that you receive SNAP, they won’t.
5. When you use SNAP, you are benefiting your community. You are bringing $$$ into your local economy which helps farmers, grocers, and local businesses.
6. When you receive SNAP, you are not taking $$$ away from someone else who might need it more. There are enough SNAP benefits for everyone.
7. Contact your local Department of Social Services Office to apply for SNAP.
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Thurman Greco
Libraries – and the Hungry
“Hunger and income inequality is probably the single biggest issue facing this country.” – Susan Zimet
LIBRARIES ARE EXTREMELY IMPORTANT TO A TOWN, TO A COUNTRY.
Libraries are equal opportunity events offering information, learning, culture for any and all who enter. They also offer an opportunity to get in out of the rain, snow, heat. As far as I can tell, it’s easier to get into a library than it is to get into a lot of pantries.
For one thing, I don’t think you have to prove where you live to get into a library. There may be libraries out there that require proof of address, and other identification but I don’t know about them. (If you know of a library requiring identification or proof of residency to enter, please let me know. I don’t want to be wrong about that.)
Libraries are important to a community. The most important thing I carry in my wallet is my Woodstock Free Library Card. I never have to show it to anyone to use the library. I just walk in the door and all this wonder, this knowledge, this information is available to me…for nothing. But, for some reason, I feel that it’s important to carry it.
At the Woodstock Free Library, a person can even take his/her dog if it’s on a leash.
As soon as I walk in the door, I see the computers. And, of course, they are available to everyone. These computers are sooo important to those of us who are in a situation where there are only funds for rent and gas. For those in the “broke” category, a computer is out of the question.
For those in the homeless category, library computers are even more important because they are a homeless person’s ticket to communication with the outside world…especially offices such as Department of Social Services, Office of the Aging. For a homeless person seeking shelter, they are invaluable. For a housed person seeking a larger or less expensive apartment, they are necessary. A job seeker cannot get hired these days without access to a computer.
We can all get an email address quickly and cheaply at Gmail.
I’ve been connecting with area libraries recently to book a series of speeches I’ll be giving this year. Libraries in communities all around Woodstock are in such wonderful condition. They are right in town in beautiful buildings. Ample parking is available. The libraries are open for extended hours.
They have bathrooms – a luxury that we all need.
I mention these things in a blog about hunger and food pantries because, in a perfect world, I would have a library and a pantry in the same building. It only makes sense really. After all, all the people I see in the pantry are also all the people I see in the library.
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Thurman Greco
Let’s Celebrate National Farmer’s Week – August 2 to 9
National Farmers Market Week begins Sunday. If you can, please take a moment this week to thank local farmers for the great food they provide our communities. Thank them also for the support we see at food pantries everywhere.
They do this as a project of the recently begun Farm Stand concept, the brainchild of Jan Whitman and Ron VanWarmer. Jan, Ron, and Carrie Jones Ross worked together to create farm stands in pantries throughout the Hudson Valley where the hungry shop for fresh produce at a price they can afford: free.
I visited 2 Farm Stands in Kingston, New York, recently. One is located at People’s Place and the other at Community Action. What an event Jan, Ron, and Carrie put together! Excited, happy shoppers choose from:
tomatoes
potatoes
onions
squashes
greens
grapes
oranges
apples.
By focusing on feeding the struggling class, one person at a time, the hungry are being fed and the lives of thousands are touched. All Farm Stand food is donated by farmers. No local merchant is losing a sale by not seeing customers in a supermarket line because these people don’t have the income to buy any of the food.
The growing Farm Stand concept offers an opportunity to move the Food Bank of the Hudson Valley into the future at breakneck speed.
In addition to the Farm Stand donations, food pantries throughout our area receive hundreds of thousands of pounds of fresh, nutritious, delicious food each year from local farms. Much of it is organic.
On the individual pantry front, Migliorelli Farm donates fresh produce weekly to our pantry year round. Greenleaf Farm Stand donates produce to volunteers who drop by before the pantry opens every Monday.
Prasida and Francine drive the pantry van to the Regional Food Bank in Latham weekly to pick up fresh produce donated from Hudson Valley Farms.
The Regional Food Bank owns the Patroon Farm which grows organic vegetables. Their crops all go to the food pantries and soup kitchens throughout our area.
The generosity offered by farmers and local pantry volunteers makes pantry distribution a reality. Those who selflessly share their time make our mission a success. Without the dedication and generosity of our farmers, where would be be?
http://www.foodbankofhudsonvalley.org
http://www.regionalfoodbank.new/farm/overview
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Thurman greco
3 Important Things We Can Do To End 50+ Hunger
“Hunger and income inequality is probably the single biggest issue facing this country”. – Susan Zimet
Ending hunger is a huge task…so big it’s scary, even. But, it’s okay to be scary. It’s doable. And, besides that, anything that’s really important is probably a little scary. Right?
HOW CAN THIS HAPPEN?
Hunger in general and 50+ Hunger in particular are buried issues. In other words, unless you’re the one shopping at the pantry, you haven’t got much of a clue. If you’re standing in a grocery line with 5 cotton tops, statistics tell us that 1 of them is struggling for $$$ to get the food s/he needs.
Food insecurity happens with 50+ citizens when the retirement income is insufficient to meet day-to-day needs.
Not all 50+ people are retired. It’s not unheard of to see people visiting the pantry, men mostly, who have been fired from jobs they’ve held for many years. After a worker crosses the line to being 50+, getting another job is pretty impossible. So, the challenges are great. What I saw most of them do is desperately figure out how to get some sort of aid: SSI, disability, that will last until the social security kicks in.
I’VE SEEN MY SHARE OF MEN IN THIS STRUGGLE. Some were successful. Others just finally got seriously ill and died. This seems tragic, I know. But, think about it for a moment. What else are they going to do when the $$$ is gone and there is no chance of any more $$$ coming in?
One such pantry shoppers came into the basement of the Woodstock Reformed Church angry. He was one of the angriest men I saw in the pantry the whole time I worked there. Frightened reality covered his face.
“I’m finished” he said. “They fired me today! I’ll never be able to get another job again. I’m too old!”
I didn’t say a word. He didn’t look or act as if he was going to hurt anyone and I felt he needed to release some of his anger. He didn’t try to punch the walls or the other shoppers or the volunteers. And, since the wait was over an hour, I felt he would quiet down before he finished shopping.
HE WAS CORRECT ABOUT 1 THING. He was probably not ever going to get a real job again. I just hoped his unemployment was going to hold out until he could figure out how to get something more permanent:
SSI
Disability
SNAP
It took him a year to calm down. Every time he came to the pantry, I saw the anger. We all just left him alone. It was all we could do for him.
Time passed.
Now, in 2015, I saw him again – calm, maybe at peace with his situation. He lives in his truck, sort of semi homeless, I suppose. He has places to bathe, etc.
He’s a talented musician, this man. He has found places to play and he is looking okay. What more can we all ask for anyway?
Anyone with income that doesn’t include $$$ for food is, in my book, in crisis..
50+ seniors routinely decide between food and transportation, food and medicine, food and clothing.
WHAT CAN WE DO?
One thing we need to do is understand, really understand, what keeps seniors from getting enough healthy food. The 50+ population is growing, not shrinking. we have a continually increasing number of seniors facing
food insecurity
rising food costs
availability of healthy food
shrinking Government funding.
FOOD PANTRY WORKERS DO WHAT THEY CAN. Volunteers in many cases keep people from dying of hunger on the streets. But pantries are, with 50+ hunger, a small effort. Can people seek more important ways to address the problem? Can we develop some long-term and short-term solutions?
WE NEED TO DO 3 THINGS:
UNDERSTAND WHAT STANDS BETWEEN THE 50+ HUNGRY AND FOOD
EDUCATE THE PUBLIC
HELP THE 50+ POPULATION GET THE FOOD
Educating the public has its own challenges. Food is such a hot button issue in our country. People immediately go into denial. They want to believe that the shoppers in the pantry lines are all wealthy and drive Maseratis and Corvettes.
Of course, this will never be true. I’ve been working in the food pantry industry for 10 years and I’ve seen very few free loaders. And, honestly, the free loaders I met all had mental issues.
The number of people shopping in in food pantries who don’t belong is very small.
The number of people who need to shop in food pantries is large.
The number of 50+ people who need to shop in food pantries but don’t is way too large.
WE NEED TO KEEP THE EDUCATIONAL EFFORT GOING. That’s why I work in a food pantry, write this blog, and speak about hunger at pretty much any place I’m invited.
Helping the 50+ population get the food is a challenge. It’s difficult to learn that you worked all your life, paid your taxes, participated in social security, and now …when you need it…it’s not enough.
What happened to our dream?
Was it ever real?
Did we get bilked?
Were we all just kidding ourselves?
OUR PARENTS AND OUR GRANDPARENTS WORKED TO BUILD A NATION. We worked to continue the American Dream. Now, we find that it doesn’t really exist. For some, the belief is that this dream never did exist. For many, the most important thing is to just not let anyone know how bad things are for them.
Hunger in the 50+ community today is where being gay was prior to 2000.
If you can talk just one 50+ senior into getting SNAP, you will be doing a wonderful thing.
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Thurman Greco.
Grocery shopping is always a problem for the elderly.
I first met her outside the shed at the Reservoir Food Pantry. A recent widow, I heard her comment “I just never knew how hard it was going to be as a widow.” Her husband died just over a year ago and she’s still making her way toward accepting her new reality.
“I never knew it would be so difficult…being alone like this. I’ll never tell my children I come here. I don’t want them to know.”
As she spoke, she wiped an occasional tear while moving through the pantry line with a group of women, all about her own age. They were choosing corn and apples, squashes, greens, onions, potatoes. As the line snaked forward, she turned her attention to the canned goods: beans, soup, fruits, veggies.
Pat hasn’t made it to the food stamp office in Kingston. For one thing, it’s a good half hour down Route 28. For another, she’s afraid:
of the forms,
the humiliation of being unable to survive on her own,
the long wait in a building she may not even be able to find,
finally, she’s afraid of the whole process which she finds frightening.
Her financial situation isn’t so far from all the other older women in the pantry line. Grocery shopping for the elderly is difficult under the best of circumstances. Getting to the grocery store can be challenging for older people – getting around in the parking lot and going up and down the grocery store aisles is no fun anymore. And, then, when they can’t find what they need, they have to maneuver the muddy parking area and the scary entrance ramp at the pantry. And…we haven’t even discussed the packages yet. They’ve got to be gotten home and in the house (wherever and whatever that is).
Finally, getting high quality, affordable food is more and more difficult as the days go by. And, as difficult as it is for Pat, she’s one of the lucky ones. She’s got a working automobile.
Combine the lack of a working automobile, bad weather, not enough $$$ and you’ve got the makings of a disaster for a senior.
I keep telling everyone who’ll listen that seniors should get their SNAP card, a list of nearby pantries, and their first social security check at the same time. So far, nobody has listened. Of course not. Why should they? We’ve all got gray hair.
Seniors struggle with the big 3:
food
housing
medical expenses.
Forget the extras like clothing. As seniors, we get less, pay more, and go without. When I need something new to wear, I go to the boutique of my closet.
Healthcare costs can be devastating, even to a senior with medicare. Once a person comes down with cancer or other expensive disease, the pocketbook empties pretty fast.
There is real pressure to feed the rising tide of hungry people at every pantry. We get questionnaires periodically from different agencies wanting to know how often we run out of food. How does “weekly” sound?
The Big 3 for pantries include:
high unemployment
widespread poverty
deep cuts in social spending programs.
Pantries, for the most part, are
arbitrary,
subjective,
strongly biased
when it comes to deciding who can and cannot receive food. There are simply too many agencies with too many people standing in line for too little food for any food bank or state office to properly oversee and supervise the selection process.
As far as feeding the hungry, we’re not even coming close to filling the need created by the widespread poverty and deep spending cuts. People in food pantry lines are, in a severe winter, choosing between eating and heating.
Our pantry, housed in a shed, an old green house, and the back of a restaurant is a ragtag emergency food movement which is in reality not emergency at all.
Lines and crowds outside our pantry on Monday afternoons can easily convince any onlooker that the good old U S of A has a food problem.
http://www.reservoirfoodpantry.org
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Peace and food for all.
Thurman
Tara Sanders Teaches Trauma Sensitive Yoga
Many people coming to a pantry or soup kitchen have given up on their stories. They’ve lost their voices. With trauma-sensitive yoga classes, they have an opportunity to change the stories themselves. They can add new chapters.
Tara Sanders, a Woodstock based yoga instructor, is the program director in the nonprofit Exhale to Inhale.
Exhale to Inhale yoga works to empower survivors of domestic violence and sexual assault to heal through yoga. Exhale to Inhale yoga guides women through postures, breathing, and meditation. Taught in trauma-sensitive style, practitioners are enabled to ground themselves in
their bodies
their strength
their stillness.
As this happens, they connect to themselves and work toward empowerment and worthiness. This practice can be transformational for survivors of sexual abuse and domestic violence when they shed the cloak of victimhood.
This is extremely important for people working and shopping in pantries because many survivors of domestic and sexual violence are found in these communities. The influence of this trauma is great. Add to this trauma another layer of
hunger,
unemployment,
underemployment,
homelessness,
serious illnesses to include mental illness
and you have a person who is finally voiceless.
Finally, the classes are free. Many attending these classes have absolutely no money at all.
Healers and body workers have long known that when the body is traumatized, the event is stored in the muscles.
Tara teaches the classes without music. She does not touch the students to correct a posture. Lights remain on throughout the class. These sessions offer survivors an opportunity to reclaim their lives through the healing and grounding of yoga.
Tara uses the yoga classes to help her students feel safe, strong, and in the present moment. As she teaches, she is a conduit for healing, and healthful programs in our community.
Exhale to Inhale is a New York-based nonprofit offering free weekly yoga classes to survivors of domestic and sexual assault. As an introduction to our area, Tara will teach free public yoga classes on Saturdays from 11 am to noon at the Center for Creative Education, 15 Railroad Ave, in Kingston.
After June 20, Exhale to Inhale yoga will be offered free of charge to women in area shelters.
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Thurman Greco
