Treasured Belongings in the Food Pantry
IT HANGS ON A WALL IN MY LIVING ROOM, MY DAUGHTER’S SELF PORTRAIT. .
Larger than life, the piece shows one eye, her nose and mouth.
Just beginning her studies at the Corcoran, Jennette wasn’t comfortable painting an entire face.
A photography major, she was painting for the first time in her life.
Sometimes I sit in my chair with my three Chihuahuas and just look at the painting for several minutes when I come home from the pantry. So much of this painting is relevant to what I’m doing now, what the pantry shoppers are experiencing.
As people travel the path to a pantry, they lose things. One shopper recently gave me three paintings. He was offloading personal possessions and just didn’t want to see them go to the dumpster.
I ALSO HAVE PAINTINGS GIVEN TO ME BY OTHER SHOPPERS. If I stay in this business long enough, I’ll end up with a whole gallery. That actually happened to Dr. Wayne Longmore, the absolute best physician in the area.
THERE’S A MORAL IN THIS STORY SOMEWHERE FOR ME. I’m just not sure what it is yet.
Dr. Longmore, an Emergency Medicine specialist, was a Woodstock physician. He practiced by himself, without the help of a receptionist or nurse. He was favored by artists, writers, musicians as well as many other people from around here. Many felt he was the best physician in the area. The artists went to him with their health issues and he treated them with dignity and respect, whether or not they had money. Most of them had no money so, when he worked to make them well, they brought over paintings.
DR. LONGMORE FINALLY HAD THE BEST LOCAL ART COLLECTION IN THE AREA. Then, the paintings and sculptures, given to him over the years by artist patients with no money, disappeared from his office after he was arrested. I never learned the real story of what happened.
The public story was that he prescribed too many painkillers…too much Oxycodone. The FBI Report referred to the product as hydrocodone. Well, the public stories in the papers aren’t always the whole story or even a piece of a story. I know that from personal experience.
DR. LONGMORE AND I KNEW A LOT OF THE SAME PEOPLE. He healed them. The pantry fed them. Without even trying, I knew more or less who was on what. How could I not know? I saw them every week under fairly intimate circumstances.
I ONLY KNEW TWO PEOPLE ON OXYCODONE. And, one of those two was trying to sell the stuff. So, they can’t blame Dr. Longmore for that.
He was sentenced to six months house arrest, three years probation, two hundred hours community service, and fined $200,000.00. The real punishment went to the poor in Woodstock who now have nowhere to go for a doctor. It puts a lot of pressure on the Healthcare as a Human Right group.
HIS OFFICE, JUST DOWN FROM LORI’S CAFE, SITS EMPTY…the office at 104 Mill Hill Road. I think of Dr. Longmore every time I pass by. I remember his beautiful art collection, all the down and out people he served, all the good the man did for Woodstock.
The place has a for sale sign, a monument commemorating those in Woodstock who unfailingly give of themselves. Frankly, I don’t care if they ever sell it.
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Thurman Greco
A Lesson I Never Learned in the Food Pantry
I NEVER LEARNED TO DISOBEY THE BOSS. And, I guess I never will. After all, I’m over 70. Chalk it up to dementia (She’s old and crazy and feeds the unworthy hungry”).
“SERVE YOUR SHOPPERS A THREE-DAY-SUPPLY OF FOOD. Each person gets food for three meals a day with each meal having three of the five food groups” the trainer at the Food Bank taught us. “Your agency needs to offer fresh fruits and vegetables, 1% milk, and whole grain breads.”
So I did.
Excitedly, I returned to the pantry with my car packed to the hilt with crates of grapes, Bolthouse carrots, 50-pound bags of onions and 100-pound bags of potatoes.
THE REACTIONS WERE STRONG – DISTINCT. “Wow Thurman! I never saw anything in the pantry like this before! Thanks!” said Dianne as she put her selections of produce in the shopping bag.
“Thurman! Thurman! Whatever you do, just don’t get our pantry shut down!” implored the church secretary.
“How can that happen?” I replied. I just didn’t understand what was in store for me.
I was the coordinator. I was just doing what the Food Bank said, after all. Besides that, the food was all totally free.
I SOON GOT IT.
“Thurman, you don’t feed this kind of food to these people.”
“Thurman, this food is laden with vermin. Get this stuff out of here NOW!”
Except, it wasn’t. It was gorgeous, restaurant quality food donated by the Food Bank.
And I didn’t. The hungry took the produce out in their shopping bags every week. They took it home, to wherever that was, and fed it to their children and family members.
And, the entire conflict was a secret for the longest time. I never told a soul about how angry the building committee was with my actions.
If I never told anyone, I felt, things would settle down and the building committee would slowly realize that we had new rules. And, of course, it took awhile for reality to sink in. Then, two things happened.
The building committee finally got very loud. They finally had an uprising which resulted in a series of meetings I called the inquisitions.
AND, I LEFT.
Some stories have good endings. Woodstock is now returning the Good Neighbor Food Pantry to its pre-2008 glory days.
I’m off in Boiceville where the Boiceville Inn, Roberts Auction, the IGA, and The Wastewater Treatment Plant people are appearing to feel positive about a pantry in the area.
WE FEED THE HUNGRY EVERY MONDAY AFTERNOON AT 2:00.
It’s a glory day at the Reservoir Food Pantry.
Peace and food for all.
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Bread Alone, the Women of the Woodstock Jewish Congregation, and the Food Pantry
The women volunteers of the Woodstock Jewish Congregation went out to the Bread Alone Bakery in Boiceville and returned with bread each week when it was their tour in the pantry. After the third tour, Neshama, a volunteer, came up to me quietly.
“Thurman, our tour is finished here next week. If you’ll send a car out each Wednesday, you can continue to get this bread. Show up at Boiceville at 4:45 and you’ll get everything you need.” With that statement, Neshama melted into the background. I never even got to really properly thank her for this gift. What a Mitzvah!’
I called Ann King. “Hey Ann, can you help me out here? You’re connected with Bread Alone. Can you go out and get bread for us on Wednesdays?”
“Of course, I love to. When do you want me to start? I’ll call out there and get the ball rolling.” To me, Ann King is the single most connected person in Woodstock.
After that, every Wednesday, Ann went out to Bread Alone in Boiceville with Prasida and returned with Vanessa totally packed with bread. The haul included baguettes, sliced loaves in plastic bags, enormous loaves sold by weight in the stores, small specialty rolls, ciabattas, French loaves, sourdough loaves, sesame loaves, multi-grained loaves. One week we did a cost analysis and the conservative total retail value of this weekly donation was $900. The annual total value of this donation came to over $43,000.
Thank you to everyone at Bread Alone for your generosity. Although I don’t know how many pantries exactly that Bread Alone donates bread to, my bet is that the number is large. My feeling is that this bakery feeds the hungry in the whole area.
ASTOUNDING.
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Peace and food for all.
Thurman Greco
Ann King and the Food Drives at the Sunflower Natural Foods Market
Once a month pantry volunteers sat outside the entrance at the Sunflower Natural Foods Market asking for food. One volunteer, Ann King, never came to the pantry to work but she was one of our most valuable volunteers.
Ann organized and managed our monthly food drive at the Sunflower Natural Foods Market.
Ann arranged the monthly date with Bob Whitcomb.
Ann scheduled the volunteers to come and sit at the table.
Ann had me arrive first on the day of the food drive with the table, chairs, sign, donation jar, and tent. I set everything up outside the front door and stayed until other volunteers came to sit at the table.
Ann taught us to make eye contact with every person coming to the store.
Ann taught us to smile and tell them about the pantry and tell them what we needed.
Ann taught us to introduce ourselves to strangers, exchange names and memorize them for the next time the person came to the table.
The event was extremely important to our pantry because we got enough boxed almond (or soy, hemp) milk for the people shopping at the pantry to get a box when they visited the pantry. Milk was a serious challenge for us because of our limited refrigeration situation.
When we needed it, we focused the food drive on cereal and received many bags of Arrowhead Mills puffed cereal. In this way, Sunflower Natural Foods Market became an extension of the pantry.
The food drives were always held on Saturday. After the food drive ended, Barry went to the Sunflower with funds collected and purchased the food. We picked it up on Tuesday morning when we could get it into the building.
We estimated once that Ann King’s efforts brought up $5000 worth of quality food every year. Thank you to every person who visited our table and dropped money in our donation jar. You helped a lot of people.
After several months of Sunflower fundraisers, Bob Otto joined in the effort. He stood in the doorway of the Sunflower with a large milk pitcher and spoke to everyone coming in the door. Bob was a one-person money generating machine. He was polite, personal, professional. No one could turn him down. As the customers came to the door of the Sunflower, they opened their wallets.
Soon, Bob Otto was expanding his efforts to include a raffle sale one summer. He spent every Saturday one whole summer in the Mower’s Meadow Flea Market entrance selling raffle tickets. I sat at a small table beside him and helped the people sign the raffle tickets. It was an amazing sight to watch.
We had food in the pantry in no small part due to the efforts of Ann and Bob.
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Peace and food for all.
Thurman Greco
Food, Sex, and Money In The Food Pantry
“We all come to our work, whatever it is, with our own peculiar set of biases, programmed into us by all we have experienced throughout our lives, including both everything done to us and everything we have done to others. – Susan Rabiner and Alfred Fortunato
If I’ve learned anything it’s that there are three words/issues more concerned with a person’s core beliefs, emotions, and spiritual attitudes than anything else. The big three are: sex, food, and money.
THESE THREE WORDS OFFER RULES FOR EVERYONE. We each have core beliefs around these subjects with opinions about what’s okay and what’s not okay. We have attitudes about food, sex, and money based on what we were taught by family members and peers when we were children. We may have attended classes on these subjects. Also, we have guidelines we’ve made based on life experiences.
Reduced to their lowest common denominator, these words are the same. They touch our core beliefs in ways going straight to the heart and soul.
Reduced to their lowest common denominator, our attitudes, opinions, and feelings about feeding the hungry may or may not be based on facts, statistics, or reality. Nor can our attitudes be changed by facts, statistics, information.
Finally, you have beliefs about who it’s okay to feed and I have beliefs about who it’s okay to feed. My beliefs are based on life experiences, facts, statistics. Your beliefs are based on your life experiences, facts, statistics. I may take classes, go to therapy. You may take classes, go to therapy. And, your reality about what’s okay and my reality about what’s okay may differ. In the end, no amount of conversation, arguing, books read, TV programs watched will change these two perceptions. In the end, I have my beliefs and you have yours.
WITHIN A YEAR AFTER I BECAME THE PANTRY COORDINATOR, EVENTS CHALLENGED FOOD AND MONEY TABOOS IN OUR COMMUNITY. Prior to this time, pantries weren’t expected to raise money. With the economic downfall of 2008, Food Bank employees realized that pantries were going to need more than they could get from the Food Bank. The solution? Raise money!
And, raise money I did. Using my own funds, I drove to Rowe in Vermont and took a Kim Kline class. I also bought, and read, her books.
SOON AFTERWARD, I WAS OUT ASKING FOR MONEY EVERYWHERE.
Volunteers sat at a table weekly at the summer farmers’ market. Volunteers were in front of the Sunflower Natural Foods Market monthly. We rented a post office box. Mailers went out. Tom Pacheco held a concert. Scott Petito, and Leslie Ritter gave a holiday concert one Christmas. (When they tried it again the next year, a snow storm interfered.) Gioia Timpanelli organized a story telling evening. Inyo Charbonneau sponsored a dance. Harriet Kazansky produced a music festival.
The first large donation came in at $500. It was a generous donation made to the Good Neighbor Food Pantry after I made a strong appeal to the Town Board. It was my first public attempt to educate people about the plight of hungry people in our area. I took the money, divided it among the different pantry congregations, and gave it to the pantry representations of each church.
“I raised this money. Here is your share to use when it’s your congregation’s tour in the pantry.”
Carmen Adler at the Christ Lutheran Church graciously accepted the money.
A woman at Overlook Methodist Church took the money, stared at it, then stared at me and then stared back at the money again.
When I went to St. John’s, the pantry representative received the funds for her congregation and asked “What can I use this money for, Thurman?”
“Use it for whatever your congregation needs in the pantry when it’s your congregation’s turn” was my naïive answer.
When it was St. John’s tour, the volunteers all sported fancy new aprons embroidered with “St. John’s” on the front.
Thereafter, when the pantry received donations, I took the money to Pastor Bode of the Woodstock Reformed Church. He opened a bank account. I spent money for food, office supplies, and gas used in pantry activities. I took the receipts to Pr. Bode for reimbursement.
Money spent on gas was used to get the food from Latham and Cornwall to the pantry weekly. And, thanks to the generosity of local residents, we kept the pantry well stocked with food. This is extremely important when one realizes that a round trip to Latham costs about $45 to return with 1200 pounds of absolutely free produce. AS FAR AS THE PANTRY WAS CONCERNED, 1200 POUNDS OF PRODUCE COST $45 AT THE FOOD BANK. What a deal!
We set aside money for a building. I finally decided, privately, that the funds needed came to $500.000. A committee headed by Peggy Johnson began looking high and low for a building. She finally came up with the same number. It seemed as if the building owners in the Woodstock were sitting back, rubbing their hands together and waiting to see which building owner was going to win the money we were trying to raise from the townspeople.
OUR BIGGEST CHEERING TEAM, I THINK, WAS THE WOODSTOCK REFORMED CHURCH BUILDING COMMITTEE.
Those people acted as if they were soooo tired of having a pantry in their building.
Those people acted as if they were soooo tired of having Thurman Greco as the pantry coordinator.
Those people acted as if they were soooo ready for their pantry to return to the glorious pre-2008 days when the pantry was open a couple of hours one morning a week, with a parking lot that was not overcrowded, and the unworthy hungry weren’t in the hallway.
Whatever. We raised money. And, thanks to the training provided by the Food Bank of Northeastern New York, our pantry weathered the storm following the downfall.
Food – That word caused more problems than any other for me as a pantry coordinator.
Who is it okay to feed?
How much?
When?
What?
How dare you serve that kind of food to this kind of people?
How dare you serve the unworthy hungry people?
How dare you feed people from outside of town?
Money – That word caused the second most problems for me as a pantry coordinator.
How dare you ask people for money at the farmers market?
How dare you send mailers out asking for money?
How dare you have fundraisers?
Peace and food for all.
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Thurman Greco
Abundance in the Food Pantry
Surrounded by abundance, poor people had trouble buying food that really nourished them. Fat was cheap and filling, vegetables were complicated and scarce, so salt, grease, and sugar reigned.” – Sara Miles
FOR ME, PANTRIES ARE ALL ABOUT ABUNDANCE. Abundance and gratitude. Churches see pantries as an outreach project. And, of course, outreach is a popular term.
Many congregations love to support feeding the hungry – especially if the funds go to feed a group of children in Botswana, Somalia, India. The farther away the better, it seems. It’s when the outreach is local that things get a little dicey.
FEEDING THE HUNGRY IN A FOOD PANTRY IS AN ACT OF GRATITUDE. When we feed people, we own up to the amazing abundance in and around us. We also face the fact that we are spiritually hungry. Feeding the hungry in a food pantry addresses this spiritual hunger issue head on. It also addresses the physical issue. Pantry shoppers and volunteers are both surrounded by abundance. There are millions of pounds of food available to pantries and soup kitchens throughout our fair land, all of it diverted from a landfill. There is absolutely no reason, no excuse, for anyone in the good old U S of A to go hungry.
Based on my experience in a food pantry since 2005, it’s my opinion that people having trouble with the spiritual issues begin to question who should get food and who shouldn’t get food. For some, feeding the “unworthy hungry” meant we were feeding freeloaders. But not all hungry people look needy. Some of the best dressed people in Woodstock never spend a dime on their clothes. For one thing, they have no money for clothes. For another, they shop in the free store closet at Family of Woodstock.
THE PANTRY HAD THREE SHOPPERS WHO ESPECIALLY DIDN’T LOOK THE PART. They were young women, with children, who drove late model SUVs. I don’t know if they knew each other but their stories were similar. Two of them had been married to men with influential employment and money. Neither one of them received one dime from the husband in the separation process.
The younger one had one son and couldn’t work because her husband seriously injured her when he threw her against a wall. Her recovery was slow. She always came with her eight-year-old son. I got the feeling they went everywhere together.
I noticed right away that she chose items from shelves where bending was not necessary. That left out many items but she wanted to be as independent as possible.
Another woman, Elizabeth, was a little older. She had a house full of children including a set of twins. She just couldn’t get it together to work. And, I doubt if she could have gotten employment in our area anyway. This lovely lady had a Ph.D. There weren’t many jobs available in her career field. And, of course, once a woman gets an advanced degree, the lower level jobs are just not open to her unless she hides the education. Sometimes education can be hidden. Sometimes it can’t. It all depends on the situation. The main thing is to get rid of it on the resume.
Elizabeth was very open minded about the food she selected. With five children, she basically took anything that wasn’t tied down. She qualified for cases of USDA. So, Elizabeth left the pantry with a case of pasta sauce, canned corn, green beans, vegetarian beans, refries, etc. Her kids ate everything. When she finished shopping, Robert Allen, our youngest volunteer, always brought out the cart to put her groceries on and wheeled them to her car.
The third person was in a slightly different situation. She was a volunteer in our pantry with a degree, a house, two adorable daughters, and a spouse with a job somewhere in Europe. The spouse decided he wanted nothing more to do with either her or the children. No money was coming across the ocean for her and the two children.
Laura was very happy to take the vegetarian items available each week. Her children loved fresh vegetables so there was much to choose from. Laura’s girls also looked forward to yogurt as a treat.
SO…HERE WE HAVE THREE FAMILIES with no money for food, (or much of anything else for that matter.)
So…here we have three households, single-headed households in need of food. If not for a couple of years, then at least for several months.
So…where were the fathers in all this? Not paying the child support, that’s for sure.
NONE OF THESE HOUSEHOLDS IS HOMELESS ALTHOUGH they might be when the tax collector comes to call.
None of these households is in rags although they might be when the clothes wear out.
None of these households is without transportation although they might be when/if the vehicle needs expensive repairs.
None of these household members look the part.
UNWORTHY HUNGRY? WHAT DO YOU THINK?
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Peace and food for all.
Thurman Greco
No Money, No Time In The Food Pantry
Three categories of poor are similar in some ways but very different in others.
However, they really are on the same path when it comes to time and money. These categories are the employed poor, the underemployed poor, and the unemployed poor.
The underemployed poor person has a specific mantra. “Work, work, work.. For all I work, I have absolutely no money and I have no time to eat if I had any money for food.” The woman who always says this when she can get to the pantry works at a health food store, cleans apartments and homes, dog walks, and house sits.
I always hate to hear these words – the people who talk about having no time and no money have no waistlines either. So, when they talk about having no time and no money, they mean it. They mean they have no time to eat and no money to buy the food if they did have the time.
Before 2008, the “no time, no money employed poor, struggling poor” category really didn’t exist in the pantry world.
Now, I see more and more of them every week.
Thank God! At least they’re managing to get some food when they can make it to the pantry.
And me? Where do I fit in all this? Well, more struggling poor means more work for me. More volunteers, more trips to the Food Bank.
It’s called job security.
Peace and food for all.
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Peace and food for all.
Thurman Greco
Statistics, Statistics, Statistics in a small town food pantry in Woodstock, New York
“In many cases, homelessness is caused by extreme misfortune, not the lack of motivation by people who suffer from it.”-Elaina Wilson
EVERY MONTH we (pantries, soup kitchens) send our statistics to the Hunger Prevention Nutrition Assistance Program (HPNA) people – the government. Numbers tell it all: how many seniors, adults, children in how many households came by for a three-day-supply of food. Except…sometimes the numbers really don’t tell it all.
A Wednesday afternoon in the pantry prepares the statistics for the HPNAP people:
“Hi, how are you doing today? Can you sign your name here? How many people are in your household? The line isn’t too long today. Things seem to be going pretty fast.”
“Nice to see you Mary. How’re things going for you?”
“Thurman, we’re so glad we could make it here today. We’ve been having a little bit of a rough patch lately. Our three grandkids are coming tomorrow and we don’t have any food in the house at all.”
Or…”How are you doing today? Your hat is just beautiful. I bet it’s one of the ones you made yourself. Glad to see you.”
“I’M NOT DOING TOO WELL TODAY. I got evicted and I’m moving in with my friend Mike. And, he lives in a studio over on Simmons. Thurman, this year has been such a struggle. Here I am, a talented, well educated woman. I just can’t seem to overcome the obstacles I’m being faced with. I can’t get a job. My efforts to start something have just not worked at all. I’m so sorry to be unloading these things on you but, right now, there’s just no one else.”
IN THE RESOURCE POOR CATEGORY THE FAMILIES CHOOSE BETWEEN FOOD AND utilities, food and housing payments, food and medicine or medical care, food and transportation, food and gasoline. This category chooses between everyday necessities and food.
Or…”We haven’t seen you in awhile. How’re you doing?”
“ACTUALLY, I’M DOING PRETTY GOOD. I GOT THE BONE MARROW TRANSPLANT SCHEDULED for next month and now I’m looking for someone to go down with me to the city to help take care of me when I get out of the hospital. I have to stay in a motel for three months after the transplant and they won’t let me get the transplant until someone promises to go and be with me. Do you know someone who can go with me? Thurman, I have absolutely no money to pay this person. I’ve got no money left at all. I know you aren’t allowed a bulletin board but can I put up some kind of notice somewhere for help?”
“I wish we did. But the building committee won’t allow us to put anything on the walls. I’ll try to spread the word, though.”
MANY PEOPLE SERVED BY PANTRIES LIVE IN poor health or without access to adequate medical care. About 50% of pantry shoppers have unpaid medical or hospital bills. This lack of insurance can be financially devastating to a family when illness strikes. The longer a person is uninsured, the worse the health becomes.
Or…”Hey Chuck, how’re you doing? We haven’t seen you in awhile.”
“Not so good Thurman. I’ve got to have neck surgery again. This is going to be the third time. I’m not even supposed to be out today but I’m completely out of food.”
Or…”Good to see you Bob. We haven’t seen you in awhile. What’s happening?”
“Well, Thurman, my car’s engine died so I can’t get out of the house. I’m completely out of food so I begged a neighbor to bring me here today.”
MOST PEOPLE SEEKING FOOD ASSISTANCE LIVE IN households existing below the Federal Poverty Line. About 75% of these people nationally earn less than $17,000 per year for a household of three.
Or…”How’re you doing today?”
“Fred’s still in the hospital. He’s been diagnosed with kidney disease and is on a special diet I’m so glad you had me go see Dr. Longmore. He told me exactly who to go see, what paperwork to get…everything I needed to get care for Fred. Because, Thurman, you know that I don’t have a dime. He’s going to get out of the hospital soon and will be on a special diet. Thank God the pantry has all these fruits and vegetables. Thurman, I don’t know what we would do without this pantry. You know we have no money and are living right on the edge. I’m hoping you have some laundry soap today.”
Or…”We haven’t seen you in a looong time. How’re things going?”
“WELL, IT’S BEEN A VERY COLD WINTER. I’ve been having a little housing trouble. I was camping out on Meads Mountain but I got caught and fined $500. So, I picked up my things and moved in from the road another thousand feet. I don’t think anyone can see me from the road now. And, I’ll tell you Thurman, it’s cold up there.”
Taken from the perspective of the people in the line, the statistics tell it all…just like it is.
AT THE END OF THE MONTH, EVERY MONTH, WE PACK UP THESE STORIES, THESE PEOPLES’ LIVES, THESE PEOPLES’ STRUGGLES AND PUT THEM INTO NUMBERS AND MAIL THEM TO THE HPNAP OFFICE.
AGENCY NUMBER
1063 households
1464 Adults
537 seniors
616 children
That about tells it all.
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Peace and food for all.
Thurman Greco
Motel 19 and The Good Neighbor Food Pantry
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“When we talk cooking and eating, we are talking love, since the entire history of how a family loves – where and how they learned to love can be told in most kitchens.” – Marion Roach Smith
EVERYONE COMING TO A PANTRY TRAVELS DOWN A PATH. For many, this journey is a real load lightener. As the finances erode, the housing goes. And, of course, when the house or apartment goes, most of what was in it, goes too.
Furniture, kitchen items, toys, clothes, tools, garden implements, books, photos, souvenirs – by the timne a person or family gets to Motel 19, things have been slimmed down to a few clothes, a blanket or two, a hot plate, or maybe an electric skillet. Maybe a toy or two if there are children.
ABOUT 40 HOUSEHOLDS ARE LUCKY ENOUGH TO BE IN MOTEL 19. Half of these households are composed of individuals. The other half are families. For the families living in Motel 19, the children are usually eligible for the school breakfast and/or lunch program. But, that doesn’t give them enough to eat at home. And, there’s no lunch program for the adults.
So…it’s off to the pantry.
PANTRIES ARE IMPORTANT FOR PROVIDING FOOD. If someone in a household can get food, bring it back to whatever and wherever is home at the time, prepare it, and serve it, a feeling that some part of the family’s routine has returned to normal. This act of preparing and serving food can be very grounding to everyone in the household.
Soup kitchens are wonderful places for people to eat but can’t substitute for pantries. Pantries are cheaper to maintain, for one thing. A soup kitchen staff, needed to prepare the food, serve it, and clean up after each meal, is more expensive than a pantry staff. Soup kitchens purchase napkins, cutlery, etc. Pantries are generally composed of volunteers. Soup kitchens have paid staff. Soup kitchens are absolutely essential for those who have no kitchens or roof at all.
Because of the cost of gas, several families at Motel 19 pile in a car and come over on pantry day. Or, an individual hitchhikes.
THE PEOPLE LIVING IN MOTEL 19 ARE, ON ONE LEVEL, VERY FORTUNATE because a minimum wage worker can easily work more than a week just to pay the rent on a tiny apartment or room.
Not everyone in a low-income household can get into Motel 19. Low-income wage earners are forced to choose between rent, gas, health care, and groceries. Living in this situation means living with hunger on a daily basis.
Motel 19 is a real lifesaver for many people sent over from the Department of Social Services when they’re homeless. Individuals, couples, families. Each household, whether one person or a family, gets one room at Motel 19. The room is furnished with a single bed, a bathroom, a small refrigerator, a microwave, and a TV. The place is a functioning motel so the residents also get clean towels and sheets weekly.
At one time, Motel 19 had a restaurant on the premises but it’s been closed awhile. Word on the street is that a pizza restaurant is coming soon. There’s a car dealership in the parking area outside the front of Motel 19. Shamrock Sales has about five or six used vehicles for sale. No one seems interested in them.
BAD BACK BOB MADE MOTEL 19 FAMOUS FOR US because, when he began coming to our pantry, he spoke about his neighbors and also brought some of them over to shop. This was a real accomplishment because these people, though very fortunate to be living in Motel 19, are trapped without transportation. Motel 19 is located at the intersection of Routes 28, 209, and 87 on the edge of Kingston. Without a bicycle or car, any person trying to get somewhere is looking for a long hike.
Imagine being a young mother with an infant or child trying to get to a grocery store, doctor, or even a soup kitchen for that matter. IMAGINE WALKING DOWN THE HIGHWAY WHERE CARS ARE TRAVELLING faster than 45 miles per hour with this infant or child in your arms. Add rain, freezing rain, or a snow storm.
Bob always thought about his neighbors when he volunteered. He reminded us that not everyone can deal with the bureaucracy of a pantry and he always took some of his three-day allotment of food home, cooked it in his crock pot, and shared it with these special neighbors.
And, Bob is right. On the one hand, our pantry has very little bureaucracy because we never ask for any ID or documentation. We ask only that the person give us his/her name, the number of persons in the household, and the breakdown of seniors, adults, and children. We need those statistics for the monthly Hunger Prevention Nutrition Assistance Program report. We’re given our line of credit for food based on these numbers. The more households, seniors, adults, and children, the more food for our pantry.
Even though the pantry has very few documentation requirements, we more than made up for the paperwork with our building guidelines. Everyone, including volunteers, was only allowed in the building during certain times…no exceptions.
When it was time for the shoppers to be allowed in the building, they were invited in five people at a time. The shoppers were allowed to stand in a single file line in the hallway. There were only three chairs available in the hallway and there were typically over fifty people waiting in line. No one was allowed to touch the walls. The wait in the hallway was often over an hour.
PEOPLE CAME INTO THE PANTRY ROOM IN GROUPS OF FOUR. They went around the room in a single file and were in the room no more than three or four minutes. They shopped for a three-day-supply of food which lasted for seven days.
THIS POST SENDS OUT A SPECIAL REQUEST: Motel 19 residents really need pantry services. Walking down Route 28 to get into Kingston is challenging for some and scary for others. Life would be beautiful if some kind souls can open a Pocket Pantry. Or maybe some other pantry in Kingston can send over food every week. Or maybe some mobile food pantry can include Motel 19 in the regular route. Contact me if you have questions.
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Peace and food for all.
Thurman Greco
A SUMMER STORM AT THE GOOD NEIGHBOR FOOD PANTRY IN WOODSTOCK
“Although hurricanes can form as early as May and continue into December in the Caribbean Sea or the Gulf of Mexico, the official Atlantic hurricane season starts June 1 and ends November 30.”-www.Theweatherchannel.com
WEATHER WAS ALWAYS AN IMPORTANT CONSIDERATION AT THE PANTRY. Winters were important because of the cold, cold, cold waits in front of the building before the door opened.
Summers were another matter altogether. Storms confronted us several times throughout the season. They ranged from gentle showers lasting a few minutes to hurricanes of historic proportions.
Always a concern in these summer events was the stream running next to the side of the church building. Actually, the building was constructed right into the stream with the parking lot on the other side of the stream. Drivers crossed over a tiny bridge to park.
Often when the rains came, the little stream rose. On several separate occasions I feared for the pantry. I didn’t fear for the building. Built many years ago, it weathered many storms and high water events. I feared water would enter the pantry room which was right on ground level.
Luckily this never happened. At one point, we were distributing food and watching the water level at the same time as it rose to within two inches of the building.
“PLEASE SHOP QUICKLY. THE STREAM IS RISING. I want us to get our food before I have to close the pantry.”
I repeated those sentences over and over and over. (As if the people could have shopped any faster. They were already being pushed to their very limits regularly in an effort to get as many people through the pantry as we could during shopping hours.)
Then, in August, 2011, Hurricane Irene blew through. The seventh costliest hurricane in U.S.History, Irene landed at Coney Island on August 28 as a category one storm and then moved through New York State on its way over New England.
Irene caused many floods described as five-hundred-year-floods by The Weather Channel. Disastrous floods occurred in the Catskill Mountains and the Hudson River Valley.
ON THE NEXT PANTRY DAY AFTER IRENE VISITED, PEOPLE FLOCKED IN. They had no power in their homes, apartments, rooms. Some had lost everything. Others were just inconvenienced by what was to be over a week without power.
All were grateful for the food they received at the pantry.Some in the line were visibly upset. It was painfully obvious that some were never going to spiritually, emotionally, and financially recover from Irene.
One couple, renting a place out near Boiceville, lost everything in the cabin they rented, including their car. Someone they knew had a room in a shed further up the road on a hill. They moved in. They’re still there. They still don’t have a car. They walk to the Reservoir Food Pantry and get what food they can carry to their home each week.
Within a very short time, the Food Bank was making Clorox available as well as water in gallon jugs. These two items had never really been on our order schedule before.
THE LESSON I LEARNED FROM IRENE WAS to be prepared in the summer. Now, I order cleaning supplies throughout the year whenever they become available at the Food Bank. We try to keep bars of soap and toothbrushes on hand in the Items of Dignity section of the pantry.
I keep water available in the pantry throughout the year if at all possible. At a minimum, shoppers can take a bottle each time they shop. In time of crisis, they can take much more depending on what we have stacked in the back.
Having bottled water stacked in the storeroom caused both problems and criticism when people who don’t understand our ordering system saw case after case after case of water just sitting in a corner. This was particularly irksome to those who saw us allowing people to take only one bottle weekly throughout the year when we had so much in the storeroom.
When criticized, I simply refused to move off the dime. Two things with their own clocks: Food Banks and Hurricanes. I learned to work with both schedules.
WHEN SUPERSTORM SANDY HIT New York City on October 29, 2012, the volunteers at the Good Neighbor Food Pantry were more prepared than they were when Irene visited. And, it was a good thing. Sandy was much larger and deadlier.
Sandy, affecting states from Florida to Maine was both the second costliest hurricane in U.S. History and the deadliest.
At the pantry, we didin’t skip a beat. As the shoppers filed in for food, we were savvy enough to ask each one about how they’d been affected by Sandy.
Probably half of the people coming through our doors in November were affected by Sandy. As with Irene, some Sandy victims in the line were unaware that food pantries even existed the week before. They just woke up one morning to discover life as they knew it to be totally different. To make matters worse, they soon learned they were in a new sociological category: situational poor. Not only were they homeless and scrounging for food, they were soon painfully aware they needed huge amounts of money to even begin the climb back to what they thought was normal.
“WE’VE LOST EVERYTHING, OUR HOME OUR CAR…EVERYTHING.”
“We’re doing better than some Thurman. Part of our house is still standing. Our car is not gone.”
“Everything is gone, our home, our car, my job.”
On and on the stories went. Standing in the hall waiting to get food was a calming experience for some people. Others were not so calmed during their first two or three visits. They looked around in the line and saw some people for what they were: 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, normal people, people battling terminal illness, politicians, schizophrenics, thieves, Woodstock’s colorful characters, volunteers.
THE FOOD BANK OF THE HUDSON VALLEY SHIPPED TRUCKLOADS OF FOOD to our community in the weeks after Sandy. In a short time, we served lines of people from the parking lot at St. John’s Roman Catholic Church off Route 375 in West Hurley. In all, trucks were sent out ten times. This was in addition to the food we distributed to people on regular pantry days.
AFTER IT WAS ALL OVER, I went to the Town of Woodstock Board on two separate occasions and tried to involve the town in our future efforts to feed the hungry when disaster strikes. I was never able to engage the Town Board in an effort to feed people in the event of a storm or other event inflicting damage to Woodstock.
The Good Neighbor Food Pantry had the backing of the Food Bank of the Hudson Valley. We had volunteers who were able to deliver food during times of emergency. What we lacked were community officials who believed that Woodstock would ever get hit. And, also, we had demonstrated that we could/would deliver large food shipments to hungry people without involving the community in any way. Why should they bother to participate? A free ride already existed.
What we did not have and what I felt we needed was for the Town of Woodstock to allow us to deliver and distribute large amounts of food to hungry people from a community property location if a damaging disaster struck our area.
When I asked for this, I MET GLAZED EYES, STARES, AND SILENCE. And, really, why should they cooperate? The Catholic Church was the site of these emergency mass food distributions now. Why change things? They simply didn’t see the need to get involved if they could shove the job off on someone else.
My argument was, and still is, that the community has a responsibility to offer a location. In the event of a future disaster, the parking lot of the St. John’s R.C. Church was simply not big enough. I argued that preparation for such an event would not hurt.
This chapter may or may not not have a happy resolution. To my knowledge, no one has stepped forward with a provision for emergency feeding for Woodstock in the event of a disastrous storm or other event.
Current plans are being formulated through Ulster County. These efforts may be strong enough to overcome the disinterest of the Woodstock Town government.
THE RESERVOIR FOOD PANTRY AND ITS LOCATION IN BOICEVILLE is now the focus of any disaster prevention efforts. Fortunately or unfortunately, the Boiceville residents are familiar with the aftermath of a superstorm.
Restoring normalcy to Upstate New Yorkers in the aftermath of both Irene and Sandy has been sadly lacking. Destroyed homes and businesses in our area are still not restored. A motel next to where we distribute food on Route 28 in Boiceville has been abandoned. Shoppers are coming for food who will probably never experience normalcy as they knew it before Irene and Sandy.
Sadly, mold and rot advance without any help but buildings and vehicles do not repair themselves. What we need to do is figure out how to facilitate the rebuilding of homes and businesses while preparing for the next disaster so this highly depressed area of Ulster County can begin to prosper again.
Thank you for reading this blog/book.
Please share this article on your preferred social media.
Please send a comment.
Peace and food for all.
Thurman Greco
