Hunger Is Not a Disease

Everyone shopping at a pantry has a first visit

 

A first-time shopper in a food pantry looks at the available foods and the question coming to mind is “How am I going to get a meal out of this?”

Supermarket shoppers push some foods aside, choosing other items.  When that happens, a store manager sends the rejected boxes and cans to the food bank where they land at the last stop:  a food pantry somewhere.

Foods ending up on a pantry shelf are often unrecognizable to the ordinary person shopping at the supermarket.

Food pantry shoppers may not know how to make their future happen but they know standing still isn’t the answer.  To be hungry is to search for spiritual sustenance, mental stamina, physical endurance, emotional balance, and food.

People go hungry when the income, whatever its source, isn’t enough to meet the cost of living.

When a person lives with hunger, just waking up in the morning and going through the day challenges heart and soul.  A normal existence seems impossible.  Every chance at happiness seems lost.

Most food pantry volunteers and shoppers I know are in a reconstructing and healing mode.  Life is finally improving!  After losing everything, getting things right again means taking many steps.  For some it means “No matter how hard I try, I’m never going to be able to fix this mess”.

But this isn’t necessarily true.  Hunger doesn’t rob us of every chance for happiness.  Figuring this all out means trying new things again and again and again.

Food insecurity leads to questioning everything including our basic beliefs because they failed us from the getgo.  For many, searching for a stable food supply, a roof, gas in the car, clothes, and healthcare becomes a search for God.

The soul needs compassion, forgiveness, and the ability to give more than take.

When shoppers don’t have enough food to eat, giving and sharing and believing are necessary.  Because there are no road maps for this trip, the soul becomes the guide.

Volunteering in the pantry changes lives and heals people.  My first visit to a food pantry changed my life.  In my heart, I feel a food pantry has opportunities waiting for us.  They are different for everyone, but they are there.

It takes much energy and time to find a food pantry you can get to and where you can shop.  A person can burn up many phone minutes doing this.  This experience strips away any illusions we have about ourselves and the world, and how our lives are unraveling.

Thank you for reading this blog post.  I feel you are reading this article for a reason.

Maybe you need a moment for yourself.  Maybe you are seeking information to change your life.  There are interesting, informative, and life changing articles on this blog which date back to 2013.

Maybe you can benefit from some of the information in this blog.  I feel that you can discover some strategies for boosting your life and times.

Please share this blog post with your preferred social media network and forward it to your friends and family.

 

Learn more about hunger and homelessness on YOUTUBE at “Let’s Live with Thurman Greco”

Find out more about Thurman at www.Thurmangreco.com.

Thanks again!

Thurman

My Story and the 9 Truths I Discovered

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I began my life changing journey fighting  hunger on a cool autumn Thursday in Woodstock, New York in 2005 where I volunteered for the first time at the local food pantry.

I was assigned a shift with Marie Duane.  I drove over to the Woodstock Reformed Church, parked my car  behind the buildling and cautiously walked in.  I had never been to the pantry before.

I entered the empty hallway and found the pantry on the right.   I walked into the room  and there it was:  a small space, actually, about 12′ by 16′.  Each wall supported a set of metal shelving units.  Each unit stood about 6′ high and 3′ deep with 4 shelves.  Most of the shelves were empty.  A few shelves had some food:

cereal

tuna

soup

peanut butter.

There was a little handwritten note in front of each display:

 person:  1 item, family:  1 item.

There may have been other items on 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  as people trickled in.  We discussed the usual:  weather, gardening, knitting, decorating the alter at St. Gregory’s Episcopal Church.

“Hi.  How are you?  Will you please sign your name here?”  Each shopper signed in and noted the number of adults, seniors, and children in the household.  After signing in, the person walked around the room selecting from the cereal, peanut butter, tuna, and soup.  The selected food was placed on the table and bagged to take home, wherever or whatever that was.

On this morning, not blessed with any psychic knowledge,  I was totally unaware of experiences waiting for me in the pantry.  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.

Nor did I for 1 moment ponder the push back I would  experience as the number of hungry seeking food grew.  Within a few short years, this 2 dozen single homeless men – mostly Woodstock’s colorful characters – had swelled (due to a tanking economy) to over 300 people weekly.  This number finally approached 500 people weekly before it was all over.

Now, in the autumn of 2015,  our stock market  experiences numerous “corrections”.  I realize I learned some things over the years  which, for me, are ground truths about the pantry.

Feeding the hungry with dignity is the most important thing.

Single homeless men are now far outnumbered by members of  the Struggling Class, households of working people holding down 2 and 3 jobs just to pay the rent and buy the gas to get to work.

The 3 most hot button words in the English language are food, sex, and money. These 3 words are concerned with a person’s core beliefs, emotions, and spiritual attitudes.  Food and money, or the lack thereof, loom large in pantries.

The sidewalks in our communities and cities have become wards of untreated mentally ill people.  In our great nation we don’t hospitalize or otherwise treat many of our mentally ill.  Instead, they  they are incarcerated.

Some of these untreated mentally ill happen to be homeless.  Homeless is not a category of people.  It’s just a situation that happens.  It can happen to anyone.

The 50+ senior population has many who lack enough $$$ for food and are largely a silent group.  The bottom line is this:  When our grandparents don’t get enough to eat, they often get sick.

I’m seeing a whole generation of children who have never been inside a grocery store.

Shoppers at our pantry can get a 3-day supply of food weekly.  Their job is to make it last 7 days.  Many share this food with a pet.  Often, the only thing a person has left from a prosperous past is the dog.

The most difficult thing I see in the pantry is a Korean War vet getting food.  Something I just can’t understand is how a person who  served in a very brutal war, and subsequently spent an adult life working and paying taxes should have to be in a food pantry line in his old age.

Much of the food available to the hungry in food pantries is diverted from its trip to the landfill.

There is absolutely no excuse for anyone in our great nation to go hungry.

Thank you for reading this blog.  The story is true.  The people are real.

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Thurman Greco

Do you ever…? 10 questions to ask hungry friends, relatives, neighbors.

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Do you ever run out of $$$ to buy the food to make a meal?

Do you ever eat less food than you need because you ran out of $$$ to buy the food?

Do you ever eat less food than you need because you can’t get the food?

Do you ever skip meals because you don’t have $$$ for food?

Do you ever skip meals because you can’t get the food?

Do you ever do without fresh/frozen fruits and vegetables because you don’t have $$$ to purchase these products?

Do you ever go to bed hungry?

Do you ever skip meals so that your children will have enough to eat?

Do your children ever eat less than they need because you don’t have enough to eat?

Do your children ever go to bed hungry?

Each week at the pantry, people line up to file through the tiny room in the shed.  Most of them come weekly…as they should.  That’s how they get the most food for the time invested.  They get a 3-day supply of food which must last a week.

They hold their heads high, chat with  neighbors in the line, put on the best face possible.  I see them week after week, trying to get  food they need at the pantry.  I cannot help but have questions.  I need to shift the focus from general to  specific, nothing more.   To me, each person is individual.  Each one has unique  needs.

As an agency of the Food Bank of Northeastern New York and the Hudson Valley, the volunteers of the Reservoir Food Pantry are trained to feed the hungry a 3-day supply of food to include fresh fruits and vegetables, proteins, whole wheat breads, dairy products.  We are extremely proud of the quality of food which we serve to our shoppers.

This 3-day-supply of food includes food for three meals on each of the three days.  Each meal needs to offer 3 of the 5 food groups.

We get this food from the Food Bank.  Grocers, food manufacturers, farmers generously donate it.  For the most part, it’s  diverted from the landfill.

In spite of the landfill diversion, the quality of this food is excellent.  Much of it, especially the fresh fruits and vegetables, is organic.  It is food that all of us who volunteer at the Reservoir Food Pantry are proud to offer.

We serve this food to:

Seniors whose social security is not enough to buy the food they need to eat.

Families whose  children need enough to eat so they can learn at school.

Seriously ill people whose income is focused on paying medical bills with no $$$ left for food.

Homeless people with no kitchens.

People living in food deserts who lack transportation to get to a first line grocery store/super market.

When I see these people each week, I cannot help but see that the numbers grow weekly.   I am always confronted with one final question:

Why, in our United States of America in the 21st century, are over 49,000,000 people not getting enough to eat?

http://www.reservoirfoodpantry.org

http://www.FoodBankofHudsonValley.org

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Peace and food for all.

Thurman Greco