Meet Woodstock’s Food Pantry – Part 4 – Trouble Rears it’s Head in the Pantry
In the last post, I discussed Bread Alone and it’s connection to the local food pantry.
Everyone else in town goes across the street to Maria’s, a local restaurant owned by an Italian family who also has a very upscale pasta factory, Bella Pasta. Maria is a lovely lady who treats everyone as if we’re guests in her home.
Maria was a great supporter of the pantry. She donated cases of Bella Pasta to the pantry weekly. She was also an important cameo participant in the Tom Pacheco Concert, Gioia Timpanelli’s Storytelling Production, and Father’s John’s story. All of these events will be covered in future posts.
During the days after the fall of the economy in 2008, I learned to categorize the hungry in many ways: artists, crazy poor, elderly poor, employed poor, generational poor, homebound, homeless, ill poor, infant poor, messed-up poor, musicians, newly poor, poets, resource poor, situational poor, transient poor, underemployed poor, unemployed poor, veterans, writers.
I learned that different congregations had differing attitudes toward these people. They ranged from “There shouldn’t even be foot pantries” to “the hungry will be fed. But not the unworthy hungry”.
In all instances I followed the direction of the Food Bank that “the hungry will be fed”. Period. Not long after I became the coordinator, I learned of a rule handed down by the Hunger Prevention Nutrition Assistance Program (HPNAP). I learned that, among other duties, it was my job to see that the pantry offer a 3-day supply of food without exception to the worthy and the unworthy hungry. Whatever. It didn’t matter.
Thank you for reading this blog/book and this post. In the next post, I’ll begin a series of posts about homelessness in the pantry.
Thurman Greco
Woodstock, NY
Meet Woodstock’s Food Pantry – Part 3 – We Meet at Bread Alone
In the last post, I wrote about a Korean War Veteran.
The second man – tall, handsome, had a generous head of solid white wavy hair. He came up to me one day in Bread Alone.
“I want to shake your hand. I worked all my life. When I was laid off recently, I realized that I’m never going to work again. If it weren’t for your efforts in the pantry, I would be going hungry.”
George, while he had white hair, was not yet old enough for social security. So, he relied on unemployment, food stamps and the pantry. The hope in these cases is always that the unemployment insurance will last until the social security kicks in.
He was the first pantry shopper to speak to me outside the pantry. Such was the stigma of the pantry. I called it the “Shame Factor.” I began fighting this condition by going into Bread Alone every day and getting a cop of coffee. After a while, pantry shoppers began to say “hello.”
Hurray!
Bread Alone, the local coffee house, is owned by Dan Leader, a very upscale baker who bakes bread and pastries not only for Woodstock but all over New York.
Dan Leader and his family moved to Boiceville in 1983 to bake organic breads in a wood-fired oven. Five years later, Bread Alone included a café, a pastry room, and a cook book he wrote and published.
Bread Alone is visited by wealthy tourists and upscale residents. Pantry shoppers also visit Bread Alone in the mornings in Woodstock and sit around a table in the back enjoying the warmth of the room, the good coffee, a comfortable place to sit and talk.
Thank you for reading this post, this blogged book. I hope you are enjoying the story. The next post will be the last part in the section introducing the food pantry. This post will offer a peek at trouble brewing at the Good Neighbor Food Pantry.
Thurman Greco
Woodstock
Bread
Meet Woodstock’s Food Pantry – Part 2 – A Shopper Touches My Heart and Soul
As the numbers escalated, I saw more and more hard working people struggling with the reality of not having any money for food after they bought the gas needed to get to a minimum wage job. I served people just laid off from a job who I knew would never work again. Seriously ill people came for food when they had no money left because every dime had gone to pay the medical bills. People came in traumatized when their homes were foreclosed or destroyed because of Hurricane Irene and Sandy.
For the most part, I accepted everyone as they presented themselves. Unless they were frightening to the volunteers, they were absolutely okay. In fact, I loved them all…even the aggressive ones.
Only 2 shoppers ever really “got to me”. I learned through these 2 men that there were weak spots in my shell after all.
The first was an older man who came into the pantry wearing a baseball cap which read “Korean War Veteran”. I simply could not then and cannot now come to terms with the fact that this man, who put his life on the line in the very brutal Korean conflict in the early 1950s is now, as an old man, reduced to standing in a food pantry line.
“Our country simply needs to have more respect for those we send to the front lines.” I could be heard muttering to any nearby volunteer after each of his visits. “Seeing this man just makes me want to take a pitchfork and head for Washington, D.C.” At the back of my mind was the realization that pantries throughout our country have not yet begun to really see the returning vets from Iraq and Afghanistan.
Thank you for reading this post. It has been and continues to be an honor to serve the hungry.
Peace and food for all.
Thurman Greco
Woodstock, NY
Meet Woodstock’s Food Pantry in 4 Parts – In Part 1 we Learn About the Economy of Hunger, and the Taboos of Money
GET TO KNOW THE COORDINATOR
“Most of us, I dare say all of us, resent change. Perhaps, at first, we laugh at the stranger in his odd clothes. Then, step two, we begin to fear him. Finally, we hate him.” – Robert Newton Peck
My total job duties took about 2 hours a month as I handed the key to the incoming congregation volunteer each month.
The food pantry system is a huge network of agencies throughout the nation mandated to feed the hungry. In Woodstock, some people felt that the pantry belonged to the congregations. Others, because of my presence in the pantry, felt that it was “mine”. They were both wrong.
The Good Neighbor Food Pantry is an agency member of the Food Bank. To belong to the Food Bank, an agency must be a 501(c)3 organization “serving the ill, needy, or infantile”. Members must either serve free meals or provide free food to the needy, and have proper facilities for storage. The food bank monitors these agencies regularly to make sure the food they handle is both safe and sanitary. Emergency feeding programs (food pantries, soup kitchens, and emergency shelters) which are members of the Food Bank provide monthly statistics on the number of people they serve to both the Food Bank and the State of New York through its Hunger Prevention Nutrition Assistance Program (HPNAP).
The Food Bank of the Hudson Valley is, itself, an independent 501(c)3 organization. The Food Bank of the Hudson Valley is not a government agency and doesn’t receive government money for daily operations although its staff administers several government food programs providing food for member agencies. The Hunger Prevention and Nutrition Assistance Program (HPNAP) provides the funds for the Food Bank to supply food and operating support to agencies.
As the coordinator, I was trained, supervised, inspected, evaluated by, and report to the Food Bank of the Hudson Valley. Both the Food Bank and I reported to the HPNAP people.
In the beginning, this position had little or no effect on my personal life other than for me to learn how to get to Latham on a regular basis for training classes. Fortunately, (or unfortunately depending on how you saw the situation), I began to take all the pantry classes offered at the Food Bank of Northeastern New York in Latham because the economy tanked and by 2008 I was definitely putting in more than 2 hours each month. I took classes on nutrition, food safety, menu planning, emergency preparedness, fund raising. As I learned things I could use in the pantry, I returned to Woodstock and tried to implement them. After awhile, I felt as if my car could drive itself to the Food Bank.
My new job required that I deal with increasing numbers of shoppers as well the prejudices and traditions of the community congregations. I became intimately involved with the rules surrounding feeding the hungry, the economy of hunger, the biases of people about pantries, and the taboos of money. All these issues revealed themselves incrementally as the numbers escalated in the pantry as people began to need food.
In the pantry I met alcoholics, artists, child abusers, children, crazies, the disabled, druggies, drunks, elderly men and women, hardworking people juggling two and three jobs, homeless, mentally ill, messed-up people, musicians, people battling terminal illness, politicians, schizophrenics, thieves, veterans, Woodstock’s colorful characters, writers, the various ministers, and the church volunteers.
Thank you for joining me on this journey. It was then, and is now, an honor and a pleasure to do this work.
Peace and food for all.
Thurman Greco
Woodstock, NY
Fight Hunger 9 Ways
FIGHT HUNGER
SUPPORT YOUR LOCAL FOOD PANTRY
Donate Instead of Dumping
-Grow fresh produce and donate it to your local food pantry.
Give Generously
-Donate reusable shopping bags for your pantry volunteers to share with shoppers
Organize a Food Drive in August
-Pantries are traditionally very lean in August.
Volunteer
-There are many jobs to be done at a pantry. Find a pantry needing your skills.
Help Set Up a Closet Pantry
-Churches/Synagogues/schools need small, closet pantries.
Participate in a Backpack Program
-Give food to the child who doesn’t eat on the weekends.
Get Organized
-Clean out your kitchen and donate healthy items to the food pantry.
Be a Friend to a Pantry
-Give a little throughout the year by donating food monthly.
Contact Persons of Influence
-Encourage elected officials to support food pantries.
The Beginning – Part 3: Matthew Gives His Job Away
Hands down, the most enthusiastic congregation was St. John’s. They usually had 4-6 volunteers each week when it was their congregation’s turn and managed to get the most donated food. It helped that St. John’s had the largest congregation of all the churches in town. It also helped that Fr. George always came to the pantry when it was St. John’s turn and enthusiastically brought food.
The Coordinator of the Good Neighbor Food Pantry was Fr. Charlie’s partner, Matthew. Fr. Charlie, the priest at St. Gregory’s Episcopal Church, got a fancy new job in the Bloomington, Indiana, area.
One of the first things he and Matthew did, even before they spoke about the new job to the congregation, was get new wardrobes, new hairdos, put their houses on the market, and assign the job of pantry coordinator to me.
“Hi Thurman. Come over and sit by me tonight.” Matthew said as we ate the potluck supper after communion one Wednesday evening. Matthew had never, never, never asked me to sit by him. But, what did I know?
“I’d like you to be the next coordinator at the pantry. I have a box of files right here for you. It’s actually very easy. All you do is pass the key from one congregation to the next every month. I’ll call the Food Bank and give them your name.”
I was totally delighted! “Matthew, I’m flattered! Thank you for this opportunity. Do you have any advice for me?”
“Yes, actually, I do. Never give away the key. No matter what. Isn’t this quiche delicious?”
Thanks for reading this post. I hope you found the story so far to be interesting. Looking back on this whole story, I ask myself: If I’d known then what I know now, would I have been so flattered, so ready to say “Yes. Or would I have run off faster than Speedy Gonzalez?’
Then answer to my question is this: “I would’ve stood my ground.”
