Food Pantry Blog – If Only….
The inspiration for this chapter came from a quote written by Janet Poppendieck, author of a book about hunger in America entitled “Sweet Charity”.
There’s all this food out there. Most people who know about hunger agree there’s enough food for everyone. If we would stop the push back on this concept, and just feed the people, our lives (everyone’s lives in the whole country) would be very different. Imagine a world without hungry children and grandmothers.
Just for a moment, think of all the ways we can benefit our many people and institutions by using this extra food.
For starters, think of pantries, soup kitchens, shelters, as our tax dollars at work. Much of the emergency food effort is manned by volunteers diverting food headed for the landfill. For my money, this recycling effort works primarily to keep people from starving in the streets.
Now, consider the United States Department of Agriculture. As our country accumulates agricultural surpluses, instead of being embarrassed by the food, life would be better if the USDA could proudly distribute the surplus to those in need. After all, surplus food is an uptown problem. It’s almost impossible to produce exactly what we need. Farms don’t work that way. Weather doesn’t always cooperate. Droughts don’t come by request. Floods have minds of their own. It’s better to produce too much than too little.
Businesses can and should ship excess food to pantries, soup kitchens, shelters. This is a responsible way to dispose of unwanted excess food products. When grocers donate to food banks, they avoid excessive dump fees and accrue tax savings. They reduce dumpster diving.
Universities, hospitals, caterers, restaurants, bakers, schools, can use Food Banks to absorb leftovers. In metropolitan areas, the surplus food can go directly to soup kitchens, pantries. This is both a civic responsibility and community outreach.
Community colleges and Universities can recognize there are impoverished students, staff and faculty in their ranks. Pantries and soup kitchens on campus will make it easier for students and staff to stay.
Elementary, Middle, and High Schools would do well to recognize the poverty among the students and staff. Food Pantries have a definite place in schools. Backpack programs should be in every school to ensure that students have enough food to eat over the weekends and holidays.
Churches, Synagogues, and other religious institutions have opportunities to express concern for their fellow man as they include the poor at the table. Congregations refer to their feeding efforts as outreach. These necessary hunger prevention programs feed people who otherwise would not have enough to eat and they give the congregations a local outlet for charity and outreach programs.
Courts and penal institutions can use this concept by having people work service hours at pantries, soup kitchens, shelters, to avoid or lessen incarceration.
Working at a pantry, soup kitchen or shelter provides service opportunities for people of all ages. The more people donate time, the less isolated these facilities become.
Diverting food from landfills offers communities an opportunity to improve our environment. Besides, why throw away good food?
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Peace and food for all.
Thurman Greco
Food Pantry Blog – My First Visit to the Good Neighbor Food Pantry: Hindsight is Always 20/20.
“So you begin…I began. I picked up one person – Maybe if I didn’t pick up that one person I wouldn’t have picked up 42,000. Just one, one, one.” – Mother Teresa
This morning I met Stuart Kline in Bread Alone. He was at the high coffee bar on a stool right at the entrance. Stuart and I see each other in passing most mornings at Bread Alone.
We exchange the usual pleasantries. What’s happening in Woodstock? Who died this week. It seems that everyone in our age group is dropping dead at the rate of one old codger a week. Some kind of fad, we joke.
Stuart is wearing a beautiful plaid shirt: chartreuse, red, blue, white. Plaid cotton.
Plaid. Floral. He has the distinction of wearing the most beautiful men’s shirts in Woodstock. His sister who lives in Nashville picks them up at a consignment store and sends them to him.
Suddenly – a shock went through me. A memory. Yes! A memory I never knew I had. It must have been one of the colors of his shirt. Who knows? Like a flash of some kind, I remembered the first time I walked into the Good Neighbor Food Pantry.
A new volunteer, I had been assigned a Thursday morning shift with Marie Duane.
I drove over to the Woodstock Reformed Church, parked my car in the parking lot behind the building and cautiously walked in. I had never been to the pantry before. There was no sign on the door so I wasn’t even sure I was in the right place.
I entered the empty hallway and found the first door on the right open. I turned into the room and there it was: a small room, actually, about 12′ by 16′. There were two windows on one wall and a third window on another.
Each wall supported a set of metal shelving units.
Each unit stood six feet high and three feet deep with four shelves.
Most of the shelves were empty. One shelf had cereal. There was a little handwritten note in front of the boxes: person: 1 cereal. family: 1 cereal.
One had a few cans of tuna. Another handwritten note in front of the tuna said: person: 1 can. family: 1 can.
One shelf had a dozen or so cans of soup with a handwritten note: person: 1 can. family: 2 cans.
One shelf held jars of peanut butter. Person: 1 jar. Family: 1 jar.
There may have been other items on other shelves but I don’t remember them.
A small table stood in the center of the room. A metal folding chair was placed in front of each window.
We sat in the chairs, Marie and I, and chatted with one another as people trickled in. We discussed the usual: weather, gardening, knitting, decorating the alter at St. Gregory’s Episcopal Church.
“Hi. How are you today? Will you sign your name here?” Marie asked each person who came to shop.
The shopper signed his/her name and noted the number of adults, seniors, and children in the household. As a point of trivia, most of the shoppers were single, homeless men.
After signing in, the person walked around the room selecting from the cereal, peanut butter, and soup. The selected food was placed on the table and bagged for the person to take home, wherever or whatever that was.
This was my first visit.
At the time, I knew nothing about HPNAP guidelines: offering a three-day supply of food, who could or could not visit the pantry, what food safety rules we followed. I was unaware of these things.
I certainly had no premonition that I would ever even return to this room after this morning’s volunteer effort.
This was clearly a case of “fools rushing in”. Knowing what I know now, I should have just run out the door and never looked back. Certainly Marie could have handled the crowd that day without me. In the whole morning, no more than a couple dozen people visited the pantry.
But, I wasn’t blessed with any psychic knowledge…certainly not the feeling of danger I felt when I first saw Ed Jabbs of the building committee.
So…Marie and I sat and visited with one another for two hours while people trickled in for the few items on the shelves. At 11:00 a.m., we rose out of our chairs, walked out of the room while turning out the lights, closed and locked the door, and went home.
I got in my car, totally unaware of experiences waiting for me in the pantry, completely unprepared for what lay ahead.
Never in my wildest thoughts did I envision the hall filled with hungry people, the tiny room packed with fresh produce and jammed with shoppers.
Never did I foresee monthly food deliveries in excess of 10,000 pounds.
Never did I for one moment imagine the building committee of the Woodstock Reformed Church being irate over hungry people receiving food according to guidelines set down by the State of New York, the Department of Health, and the United States Department of Agriculture.
Never did I think I would be grappling with the term “unworthy hungry”, introduced to me by local religious residents.
Peace and food for all.
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Thurman Greco
Hunger blog – There is Absolutely No Need for Anyone in this Great Nation to go Hungry.
My conviction is that hungry people shall be fed. I’m totally convinced that there is absolutely no need for anyone in this great nation of ours to go hungry.
I was 20 years old when I saw my first hungry person. Traveling by car to Mexico city on a trip to meet my future in-laws, I saw a hungry woman holding a small baby in one arm and asking for money. She was sitting on a street corner in Monterey, looking at people with her hand out – palm up.
Seeing this woman didn’t constitute a life changing event. This moment merely confirmed a belief I was surely born with.
So, this brings up a question beside the point: If I’m born with a conviction, is it genetic?
Or, is it a carryover from a past life experience?
This conviction has been part of my life experience – a dormant piece of belief trivia until my life in the Good Neighbor Food Pantry moved it to a center stage action affirming creed.
So, then I have other questions regarding this conviction.
Why was I born with this conviction?
Why did life events not trigger this belief until I’m over 70 years old?
Are there other convictions out there that haven’t been triggered until life events activate them?
What happens to those other convictions if I die before they’re “turned on”?
Peace and food for all.
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Thurman Greco
Food Pantry Blog – 9 Things You Can Do To Help the Homeless In Your Area
“People are living in tents. They’re living in cars. They’re living in the woods.” – Ginger Segal
Be a friend to Mother Earth by donating instead of dumping food, growing fresh produce and donating it to your local food pantry, donating clean egg cartons and reusable shopping bags pantry volunteers to share with shoppers.
Donate food to a homeless friendly pantry in your area. A homeless friendly pantry doesn’t discriminate against homeless shoppers by demanding identification with addresses. After all, homeless people don’t have an address and cannot shop in those pantries requiring detailed identification.
Donate food to a pantry in your area that distributes food the homeless can eat. Homeless people carry their kitchens in their pockets so a lot of food which we take for granted and use is just not useful for the homeless person. Homeless people need peanut butter and crackers, cereal in small packages, fruits and vegetables to be eaten raw: carrot sticks, strawberries, blueberries, celery sticks, etc. Milk in small containers is useful.
Give a little throughout the year by regularly donating to the pantry in your area which is most homeless friendly.
Volunteer at a homeless friendly pantry or soup kitchen.
Communicate with Persons of Influence by contacting elected officials about homeless issues in your area and encouraging them to make ending homelessness a priority.
Get organized by cleaning out your food pantry and donating the healthy items to the food pantry. Donate clothing and bedding in good condition to places where you feel the homeless will have access to some of the items.
Understand that returning vets have special needs and they often begin their separation from the military homeless.
Know that people being released from prison often are homeless. They no longer have contact with their community. They have no job. They have no place to go.
Help set up a pocket pantry in a church, synagogue, or school.
Peace and food for all.
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Thurman Greco
Hunger Blog – Hunger is Not a Disease at the Food Pantry.
In March, 2011, Mark Bittman of the New York Times wrote an opinion piece entitled “Hunger is a Disease.” The following post is my response to his story.
HUNGER IS NOT A DISEASE
Hunger is many different things to many different people…depending on the conditions they live in.
Because I’m the coordinator of a food pantry in Ulster County, New York, I see the many faces of hunger every week.
I see the hunger of the line as people stand outside the building, sometimes for as much as an hour, to get a three-day supply of food which must last seven days. I try to “pad the bill” as they say, by bringing in as many different kinds of fresh produce, dairy products, and bread into the pantry weekly as I can. My policy here: take as much as you can eat for three days.
The three-day limit is a Hunger Prevention Nutrition Assistance Program (HPNAP) guideline. And, it’s a practical one. The fresh produce really isn’t going to last much more than three days. So, everybody gets to take all they can eat in three days.
I see hunger in the condition of people coming to the pantry weekly with absolutely no money for food. These people, while receiving a three-day supply of food which will last for seven days, are doing without MUCH: salt, pepper, sugar, flour, fresh milk, cooking oil, coffee.
Often these people, like the members of the Flores family, are working 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. Period. No insurance. No food. No clothes. Thank God for the free clothes at the Family Clothes Closet.
When I think about it, I realize that everything they get is recycled: the apartment they rent is old and rundown. The family pickup is definitely used. The clothing is brought over to Family by people who no longer plan to use it.
The food, likewise, is recycled: the produce, dairy, and bread was definitely on its way to the landfill when it got diverted and sent to the Food Bank.
The canned goods were all diverted at the grocery store from the landfill. The cans are dented. Many are outdated. Some have no labels anymore.
The boxed goods are the worst…especially the crackers. A box of crackers is really a box of cracker crumbs.
No matter, the people are grateful for what they get. It’s better than nothing.
For the most part, the people shopping at our pantry are what the survey labels resource poor. Resource poor routinely choose between food and utilities, food and housing payments, food and medicine/medical care, food and transportation, food and gasoline.
And, of course, people in the resource poor category are also food insecure. They lack, at times, enough food for an active, healthy life for the household members.
It’s physically challenging to work three jobs on insufficient food. Hungry school children have a much harder time learning than their well fed classmates.
There are many articles, books written about global hunger. For me, global hunger is not a focus. What DOES exist is the hunger in my pantry, my neighborhood, my community.
Hunger is a condition. It accompanies malnourishment.
As Mark Bittman of the New York Times says: “Hunger can lead to starvation; starvation to death.”
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Peace and food for all.
Thurman Greco
Food Pantry Blog – Migliorelli’s, Hannaford’s, Walmart, Shoprite, Bread Alone, and HPNAP Leave Gifts.
During the summer, Migliorelli Farm supplemented our produce when they donated the unsold produce from the Farmer’s Market. This generosity allowed us to have extra produce on Thursdays. During the winter months the farmer’s market was closed and we brought extra produce from the Food Bank.
The goal was to allow the shoppers to take as much produce and baked goods as they could eat in three days. So, while the shoppers were rushing around the room, they were using valuable seconds, minutes choosing from the gorgeous produce which volunteers brought in only a few hours before.
The Hunger Prevention Nutrition Assistance Program people wanted everyone to have a three-day supply of food for each person in the household with food for three meals daily with each meal offering three of the five food groups. They wanted us to serve 50 percent fruits and vegetables and we proudly did so. Guidelines included low fat dairy products and whole grain breads.
We generally had much bread and people could take all they wanted. Bread Alone was extremely generous with us so our shoppers got excellent quality bread.
Baked goods (pies, cakes) were always available compliments of Hannaford’s, Walmart, Shoprite.
Many was the week when I heard “Oh boy! My son (brother, sister, mother, father), is having a birthday. Now I have something to give.”
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Tomorrow’s post will tell the story of my first visit to the Good Neighbor Food Pantry.
Peace and food for all.
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Thurman Greco
A New Family Visits the Good Neighbor Food Pantry in Woodstock for the First Time
“Is this your first visit? Welcome. We hope you’ll come every week. That’s how you get the best deals. Come on in. Go around the room in a clockwise direction. Start here with a bottle of water. Now, as you go around the room, can you use a box of cereal? How about a jar of peanut butter? We have some grape jelly today. Take a jar of mayonnaise, too.”
“No thanks. I have a jar of mayonnaise at home now. My kitchen is almost totally empty because my husband hasn’t worked in seven months. I’m completely out of food. But I do have a jar of mayonnaise.”
“Take it anyway. You never know when we’ll get more in. Back on this wall is our USDA section. You can take two cans of each type of vegetable or fruit for each person in your household. That means you can take two cans of vegetarian beans, refried beans, green beans, corn, peaches, and tomato sauce for each person. How many people are in your household?”
“There’s me, my husband and my two little girls. They’re in elementary school.”
“With four people, in your household, you can take eight cans of each of the USDA foods.”
I was always proud to have the USDA foods. When a person’s kitchen is totally empty, it’s a godsend to be able to take several cans of different items to put on the shelves. Our tax dollars are at work here.
“While you’re making your way around the room, take what you can of the fresh produce, breads and bakery items. We’ve got potatoes here and carrots, onions, peppers, spinach, salad mix. Take what you need from the 100-lb. bags of onions and carrots. Take what you can eat in three days.”
“Over here in this section, we have a shelf of canned miscellaneous items. You may take one item from this shelf. Underneath, we have #10 cans. Take one if you think you can use something that large. As you go along, be sure and take some mushrooms, tomatoes, celery, yams. Don’t forget the Progresso cooking sauce. Can you use a box of crackers? We’ve got some Triscuits today. How about bread? There’s a lot of Bread Alone bread today. Take what you need. Up on the top shelf we’ve got corn flakes.”
On and on this went as the people circled around the room.
Months later her story revealed itself. Her husband was badly injured in an accident and will probably never work again. They owned a piece of land which they sold for money to live on. One child has diabetes. Here was a woman struggling against many obstacles to raise her two daughters properly.
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Peace and food for all.
Thurman Greco
Waiting to get into the Pantry Room, the Shoppers at the Good Neighbor Food Pantry in Woodstock Stand in the Hallway for as Much as an Hour Sometimes
The hallway was about fifty feet long and eight feet wide. It was lighted with neon lights installed in the ceiling. About six feet in on the left wall, before the Meals on Wheels entrance, was the Items of Dignity closet. About halfway down the hallway on the left was the entrance to the Meals on Wheels kitchen.
To make sure the Meals on Wheels volunteers could get in and out of the building, the sign in table was on the right side of the hallway across from the Meals on Wheels entrance.
The shoppers stood in a single line behind the sign in table on the right side of the hallway. They weren’t allowed to touch the walls or sit on the floor. They just stood there, for as much as an hour sometimes, waiting for their turn to go into the small pantry room.
“I hope they have yogurt today. Bobby really likes to have a cup of yogurt when he comes home from school.”
“Those green beans we got last week were sooo delicious!”
“Does anybody know someone who can fix my car?”
“What’s wrong with it?”
At the end of the 50-foot hallway was the storeroom and the famous left turn. The hallway turned left here leading to the rest of the church. Forbidden territory. We weren’t allowed to go down the hall beyond that point. Unfortunately, that’s where the bathrooms were.
If someone needed to use the men’s room or women’s room, they walked to the end of the hallway, turned left into the forbidden territory, and then chose the appropriate room. After the person left the restroom, a volunteer went into the room and inspected it for cleanliness and to be sure the toilet paper wasn’t stolen.
“Next 2 please.”
“Tony, here’s some more cardboard for you.”
Thanks for reading this blog/book. Tomorrow’s post focuses on a new family visiting the pantry for the first time.
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Peace and food for all.
Thurman Greco
Food Pantry Blog – In the Pantry Room on Wednesday Afternoons
We want to prevent waste and build community. Why throw away perfectly good food? There are hungry people who could really use it right now.” – Nancy Hahn
Rich Allen walked to the door of the Woodstock Reformed Church. “Will the first five people in line please come in now?”
For me, this was always a sacramental moment.
I stood at the door to the pantry room. “Is anyone signed in?”
As soon as a person was signed in s/he was invited into the pantry. Shoppers continued to enter the pantry as soon as they were signed in until the room’s total was four shoppers. When this happened, the persons waited in the hallway until a person finished and left the pantry. Then the next person in line was called in. This pace continued nonstop until the pantry closed at 7:00. We kept the room at a maximum of four shoppers all afternoon because there was always a line.
People shopped for the two to three minutes it took to go around the room and then left. In that short time they chose from about thirty different kinds of canned goods and whatever fresh foods were available. We rarely ran out of the fresh foods because we brought as much back from Latham as we could carry.
With four shoppers and one to two volunteers in this small room, there was no room to turn around, back up, or retrace one’s steps. The produce boxes were piled high along the four walls in front of the shelves. They held the bounty from the drive to the Food Banks. The shoppers filed through the pantry very quickly. A slow shopper might even stop the line for a few moments. As the people edged around the room with not even an inch of free space, empty boxes were sailing out of the room to be caught by Tony Cannistra, Bob Otto, or Richard and Robert Allen.
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Peace and food for all.
Thurman
Wednesday Afternoon Pantry Opening Ceremonies
Every Wednesday, when the barn shopping was happening, I walked up to the pantry entrance. The shoppers always parted and allowed me space to get to the door.
“Hello.”
“How are you doing?”
“I haven’t seen you in awhile. How are you doing today?”
“How is your neck doing? Have you got that operation scheduled yet?”
Every Wednesday afternoon, at exactly 3:00 p.m., I unlocked the small basement door in the side of the Woodstock Reformed Church. There was a ceremony to this. I entered the building accompanied by two volunteers. We then worked rapidly to get things ready for the shoppers. I turned the lights in the pantry room and the hallway on. The doors to the Items of Dignity closet were opened.
The outside building door of the Woodstock Reformed Church opened into a small foyer area with a stairway to the second floor and another door leading into the hallway itself.
No one connected with the pantry was allowed to linger in the foyer.
No one connected to the pantry was allowed to stand, sit, or walk up and down the stairs.
No one connected with the pantry was allowed to leave packages in the foyer.
No one connected with the pantry was allowed to place cardboard in the foyer.
In short, the foyer was kept open, free of anything or anyone at all times.
The door in the foyer opened into the hallway which was about fifty feet long and about eight feet wide. This is where all the action was.
As we walked through the foyer to the hallway, we worked rapidly to prepare for the crowd of hopeful people outside the door.
The door to the pantry was immediately to the right at the beginning of the hallway. Three feet beyond the pantry entrance was another door…to a room no one was allowed to enter: the handicap bathroom.
Two volunteers, usually Rich Allen and Prasida Kay, would fire upn the computer and make sure the sign in table was ready while I ran into the pantry and quickly checked everything one last time.
Maritza broke out of the line, entered the hallway and stood at the Items of Dignity closet. She speaks no English but she has a beautiful smile and definitely knows how to distribute toilet paper and razors.
“Okay out there?”
“I’m fine”. Rich
“Wait Thurman. We need another couple of minutes.” Prasida
“Okay guys. It’s a go…GO.” I stood at the entrance to the pantry room.
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Peace and food for all.
Thurman Greco
