August and the Beach on the Tannery Brook in Woodstock
THIS BLOG IS CELEBRATING ITS 10TH YEAR OF PUBLICATION!
August is a wonderful time to be in Woodstock. The sun shines brighter. The breezes are unbelievable. Music is everywhere. And, finally, there is that August moon.
Woodstock is mystical and magical and a little bit too good to be true all year round but August is special.
People put on their swimsuits, grab some snacks, and head down Tannery Brook Road to the stream. We don’t need many more directions than that. If it’s your first visit, you’ll know you’re there when you get there..
As you go down Tannery Brook, you’ll cross over the Brook at Hillside Terrace.
Keep going. This isn’t the bridge you’re looking for.
Your next landmark is Streamside Terrace – on your left. It’s a fully armed street: Homeowners have put up “No Parking Signs” they got at Houst. They’ve posted them on their street by the road. Keep going past this street.
Next is the second bridge to cross Tannery Brook Road. You’re almost there! Cross over the bridge. If you turn left after crossing the bridge, you’ll be on Millstream. Going to the right will put you on Ohayo Mountain Road.
Just across the bridge, Tannery Brook dead ends at this intersection. This is the place! Town signs are all along the road: “NO PARKING”. As far as I can tell, nobody, absolutely nobody, pays any attention to them. Everyone is stricken with temporary blindness or something.
It’s crowded here. The swimsuits are all the latest styles. They get smaller every summer.
People jump around in the water, then sit on the little sandy beach. Children play. Teenagers play. Adults play. Parents play.
There is an absence of watches, timepieces, calendars and interest in the things we’re supposed to do.
There is maybe a boom box or two. Maybe even a guitar.
Everyone loves hanging around the stream and the sand with one another – old and new friends.
But, on Wednesdays and Thursdays, not everyone wears a swimsuit. On Wednesdays and Thursdays, some of the people are in street clothes minus their shoes.
They don’t have swimsuits. But they do have a little time to play in the water before the food pantry opens.
After playing in the stream a few minutes before the pantry opens, they get out of the water, put their shoes back on, and head for the food pantry line.
When they begin to put on their shoes and head for the food pantry line, they remind us of the reality of August:
September is coming soon.
Labor Day comes the first Monday. The Magical August Moon is gone and we are all wearing our winter boots – forgetting the summer’s magic we found in August.
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Let’s Live with Thurman Greco is a program aired weekly on Woodstock’s own educational TV Channel 23. This show is an informative, upbeat hour with no rehearsals. Some segments support the blog information and highlight Reiki Therapy, Hand and Foot Reflexology and other wellness subjects.
Guests are various people whose lives have brought them to Woodstock for a day, a week, an hour, a decade or more. I can truthfully boast that guests report they enjoy the experience.
Let’s Live has been running for over 15 years with an occasional intermission, now and then.
Enjoy interesting and fun programs while getting a peek into Woodstockers being themselves. Search “Let’s Live with Thurman Greco” on YouTube and check out the ever growing list of videos.
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Thanks again!
Thurman
Politicians – the Season Begins Again!
The political season begins again. In Woodstock, the politicians come calling. They knock on the door – their smiles open, their outfits perfect.
And, they don’t want to hear any questions – not from me, anyway.
I answer the door and listen to their message. I’m waiting to pounce, really. Because, I know they don’t know anything about hunger in our area.
And, I do know about hunger in our area.
The minute I open my mouth, they start to run for it.
Well, not so fast politician. Not so fast. You can’t leave my front door without taking a copy of one of my books with you.
I really know more about the economics of this area than they know. I know about children who go to school hungry. I know about families who routinely choose between food and transportation, food and housing, food and healthcare.
The politicians know their dance is up for today. Because I know about homelessness. I know the difference between shelter and housing.
Woodstock is a community where people working here come from somewhere else.
Each year, I figure that some kind of message will go out and no politicians will knock on my door. I’m wrong every year.
So, I sit – waiting to pounce.
Lord, I apologize. I simply can’t help myself. Someday, I’m going to apologize and know its the last time because I won’t act this way next time. I’d be lying to you now, Lord, if I even pretended that I won’t do it again.
I love pouncing on these people who knock on the door. I love to tell everyone how hard it is for the elderly to get food when their shoulders and knees don’t work anymore. I love to talk about friends I have who don’t drive anymore and who live in a food desert.
Lord, as seniors, we routinely pay more, get less, and do without. The without part comes because we’re outliving our savings.
I feel like everyone needs to know these things. How are the politicians going to know about them if I don’t tell them? I’ve convinced myself that its part of my job as a food pantry volunteer.
Food pantries are mostly hidden services. People shopping at one certainly don’t tell anyone where they get their groceries. And, the volunteers don’t talk either.
In the beginning, I was bothered about this but I’ve come to realize that food pantries are places where miracles happen. And, miracles are much easier if no one knows about them.
Lord, on behalf of everyone who shops or volunteers at a food pantry, I offer gratitude for the many miracles You perform on our pantry day.
And, Lord, thanks for sending these politicians over to my house every voting season. I love to pounce and then send them away with my books.
Thank you again Lord. I offer gratitude on behalf of everyone who shops or volunteers at a food pantry.
Amen
Thanks for reading this article! If you enjoyed it, check out some of the older articles. Hunger is not a Disease is an fascinating story about hunger in a small town food pantry. This blog has been relating stories and events for ten years!
I’m amazed when I read this. I never, in my wildest dreams, thought I would be writing about hunger and homelessness for over 10 years. And yet, here I am, plugging away!
What a journey this blog has been – and continues to be.
What was I thinking?
Please share this article with your friends and family. Forward it to your preferred social media network and post it on Facebook even.
Check out my books on www.thurmangreco.com. The website is being repaired so contact me at thurmangro@gmail.com to purchase one or more of the books.
Let’s Live with Thurman Greco is a program aired weekly on Woodstock’s own educational TV channel 23. This show is an informative, upbeat hour with no rehearsals. Some segments support the blog information and highlight Reiki Therapy, Hand and Food Reflexology, and other wellness subjects.
Guests are various people whose lives have brought them to Woodstock for a day, a week, an hour, a decade, or more. I can truthfully boast that guests report they enjoy the experience.
Let’s Live has been running for over 15 years with an occasional intermission now and then.
Enjoy interesting and fun programs while getting a peek into Woodstockers being themselves. Search “Let’s Live with Thurman Greco” on YOUTUBE and check out the ever growing list of videos.
Please contact me at thurmangreco@gmail with comments or questions.
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
10 Things You Can Do to Help the Homeless
Persons with no fixed address live in what some refer to as an “invisible world”. With your help, they may not be stuck there. Making their day-to-day lives a bit easier is helpful and important. There ARE things you can do.
This list of ten things to do may seem a little bizarre to you. But, a List of Shelters is very different from a List of Food Pantries or Soup Kitchens.
If you take this list seriously and use some of the suggestions, you’ll understand.
You’ll see.
But, whether you try to do one item or all ten, I send you gratitude. The things you do will ripple kindness out beyond your circle. And, right now, kindness is needed desperately.
DEVELOP A LIST OF SHELTERS
Search out local shelters and create a list card. List each shelter by location and include phone numbers and a bit of information which may be helpful to those without addresses.
Distribute copies of this card to homeless people.
MAKE A LIST OF FOOD PANTRIES
A homeless-friendly food pantry distributes ready-to-eat items like peanut butter and crackers in individual packets, cereal and milk in individual containers. Some food pantries offer small containers of fresh fruits and vegetables.
Search out area food pantries that are homeless friendly. Make an info card listing hours and days each pantry is open. Include the phone number, address and directions to get there.
Distribute copies of this card.
INCLUDE A LIST OF SOUP KITCHENS
Search out area soup kitchens. Make an info card listing hours and days each soup kitchen is open. Include the phone number and address with directions to find it.
Carry copies of this card to distribute.
DONATE CLOTHING
Organizations serving the homeless always need gently used items in good condition. They need items in all sizes from infant to XXL and beyond.
Blankets and sleeping bags are in demand year round.
People are always asking for socks.
DONATE GROCERIES
Because the homeless carry their kitchens in their pockets, their food needs are specific: peanut butter and crackers in individual containers, individual packets of vegetables and fruits to be eaten raw (such as strawberries or carrots), cereal packed in individual containers, milk packed in individual containers.
When someone in your community conducts a food drive, donate a bag full of homeless-friendly foods.
If no one is having a food drive, fill a grocery bag with food and take it to your local food pantry, shelter, or soup kitchen.
Better yet, hold a food drive yourself.
In the past I’ve blogged posts about holding a food drive. Several dates of these posts include May 3, 2018, January 13, 2021 – February 11, 2021 – February 25, 2021. There are others.
Food drives are not difficult and they can be fun. Everyone should have the experience. Email me if you have questions. thurmangreo@gmail.com
VOLUNTEER AT A SHELTER
Shelters depend on volunteers to sign people in, and cook and serve meals. Depending on the resources of the shelter, you may be able to do other things such as helping kids with homework, teaching ESL classes, writing resumes.
VOLUNTEER AT A SOUP KITCHEN
Soup kitchen volunteers pick up donations of food, help prepare and serve meals, cleaning up at the end of the shift.
VOLUNTEER AT A FOOD PANTRY
Volunteering at a food pantry is a community experience. I did it for years. Never, at any moment, did I feel I was wasting my time.
SHARE A MEAL
Whenever you leave your home, bring a bagged meal to share with a person on the street.
ADVOCATE
When you do a few of the things on this short list, you will find yourself involved in your community, even if that was not your intention.
Your interest in hunger and homelessness automatically makes you an advocate – even if you don’t think you are. When you help feed hungry and homeless people, you are fighting hunger in our country.
Most people in food pantries distribute a 3-day supply of food to everyone in each household.
But, however you see yourself, your good work, kindness, and generosity will ripple out beyond yourself and your community.
One thing is for sure, we need more good work, kindness, and generosity rippling out.
Something else happens when you share info cards, bagged lunches, food, and sleeping bags:
The homeless people you interact with begin to lose their invisibility. You replace that invisibility with respect when you treat them as individuals. Courtesy, kind words and a smile will change not only your life but theirs. .
You may even learn someone’s name!
Thank you for reading this blog post. Please share it with your favorite social media network.
Forward it to a friend or relative.
Learn more about hunger and homelessness on YOUTUBE at “Let’s Live with Thurman Greco”.
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Thanks!
Thurman Greco
One last commercial here: A “HOPE on the ROAD” presentation was recorded and is on YOUTUBE. Tune in to YOUTUBE to benefit from this presentation.
I can present a segment of “HOPE on the ROAD” to your library, your organization, your class, your group.
If you are a Reiki practitioner, “HOPE on the ROAD” is easy to learn so you can present it to people in your area.
There is no charge for “HOPE on the ROAD”. To participate in “HOPE on the ROAD”, contact me at thurmangreco@gmail.com.
Thanks again,
Thurman
Food and Healing: Communion
Why are you talking about having no bread? – Mark 8:17
“You shouldn’t feed this kind of food to these people. If they are hungry enough, they’ll eat anything.”
There’s a hunger beyond food that’s expressed in food. And, that’s why feeding is always a kind of miracle.
Food helps the sick and injured when the cook’s intention is incorporated in the “broth”.
Delicious food can be one of the last experiences of physical joy for the dying.
Food and healing go together because when you feed others with integrity, you help them heal.
Sharing food in the food pantry is a sacrament.
– – – – – – – – – – – – – – –
The food pantry was in the basement of a church right off the village green.
And, I hadn’t even darkened the door in a church in over thirty years; not as a congregant, not as a guest. The closest I came to the inside of a church or syagogue was a graveside burial service for an older relative in a military cemetery outside Culpepper, Virginia. I also attended a Jewish wedding in a hotel in Baltimore.
When I became a pantry volunteer, I found myself in the local interfaith community, a stranger in a foreign land. Right away I noticed that, intermixed with the need for peanut butter, shoppers showed a strong spiritual need for connection, acceptance. This was the hunger beyond food. The closest many shoppers ever got to a church or synagogue service was the pantry line in the basement of the building.
A food pantry is another way to have a religious service. Sharing food is the prayer. Food distribution in the pantry is a spiritual experience.
When things really get going, pantry volunteers regularly distribute thousands of pounds of cereal, beans, soup, grapes, lettuce, carrots, and squash, bread, cheese, eggs.
A liturgy is hidden in how we process the shoppers through the barn, the hallway, and the pantry room. The pantry offers Communion to a group of people in the middle of a spiritual journey.
In the beginning, I didn’t see this. Then, I began to get glimmers. I saw things in people’s faces – I didn’t know what. I couldn’t explain it. But I recognized it. I saw an expression, and had an “aha” moment.
This Communion doesn’t require much. Shoppers and volunteers simply sign in at the food pantry door. People came from all different places spiritually and religiously: agnostics, atheists, B’Hais, Buddhists, Christians, Confucians, Jains, Jews, Hindus, Muslims, Russian Orthodox, Shintos, Sikhs, Zoroastrians.
Early on, I saw something in a person’s face but didn’t know what. I couldn’t pinpoint, describe or explain what I saw.
The man who lost what he believed was the last job of his life…
The old woman with her toddler grandson who chose his own apple at every pantry visit…
The senior wearing a baseball cap with “Korean War Veteran” embroidered on the front…
They came through the line and took what they needed for the week: tomatoes, a bag of salad mix, squash, onions, potatoes. They received what they chose with no strings attached. Our nation’s abundance stocked the pantry.
Volunteers distribute food unconditionally to everyone who shops, without exceptions. Hungry people pour through the basement weekly and leave, their arms loaded. Some of them get almost more fresh produce and Bread Alone bread than they can carry.
And, if they can’t carry it, Richard, Robert, Jamie, and Little Mikey (the entire Allen family) help.
This family has a mission. They help get supper from the pantry into people’s cars and on its way to their homes.
Each week I opened the pantry when I unlocked the outside door with a key. The locked building also housed a beautiful sanctuary. As volunteers, we were allowed in the portion of the hallway where the pantry and storeroom were located.
Each turn of the key reminded me that a church with no one in it is just a building.
We encountered faith in the pantry outside the church sanctuary on Wednesday and Thursday afternoons. With little or no religious doctrine, these weekly encounters were as freeform and varied as a faith can be because the State of New York insisted on secular food pantries. I felt our pantry represented civic religion – belief in things without including God. Everyone going through the pantry had a different doctrine.
It was all okay.
The whole thing reminded me of the birthplace of Lyndon B. Johnson at the memorial built in his honor in Johnson City, Texas. After spending time at the memorial, I realized I visited a deeply religious and spiritual place…but it was civic.
There’s room for civic religious beliefs in the pantry. After all, worship can happen in the most varied placees: inside a jail cell, a cemetery, on Facebook, at a family table, a roadside shrine, a person praying on a rug at high noon in a parking lot somewhere, a mountainside, a stream, a hospital room, a monastery.
All it takes is for someone to be alert to what’s happening.
For me, every shopper and volunteer has meaning and is cherished. Each and every one is of profound value. It doesn’t matter whether or not anyone else sees them as successful or beautiful or useful even. Success, beauty, and usefulness doesn’t impact anyone’s worth. Everyone in the pantry is worthy.
That’s what matters.
Looking back on my time in the food pantry, no one else saw any similarity between Communion and the food pantry.
Church members never noticed the most popular service in that building each week fed the hungry at the food pantry in the basement.
And, I didn’t either in the beginning.
Later, when I recognized the face of God, I got it.
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5 Easy Steps to Your Successful Food Drive
It’s easier than you think.
Step 1:
Choose the food pantry, homeless shelter, school, church, food bank, or soup kitchen to receive the food you collect.
Step 2:
Contact your recipient, and learn what items the hungry people need. Try to be specific. Can they only accept canned food items or can they use frozen and fresh foods? What about pet food?
If they need pet food or food for homeless people, for example, request those items (with specific food item suggestions) at your drive.
Step 3:
Decide how you want to collect the donated food.
The method I prefer is, of course, the one that worked for me several times. I recommend this method:
Gather some large empty grocery bags in good condition.
Attach a letter to each one saying something like:
Dear Neighbor:
“We are having a food drive in this neighborhood. Please fill this bag with food and set it out on your entryway on ………………………….. when it will be picked up between 00:00 and 00:00. Include am and pm to be more specific.
We need the following kinds of food:……………………..
Your donated food will be donated to ……………………………… Thank you for your generosity. If you have any questions, please call…………………………………. Signed…………………………………….”
Set the bags out at every address in the area you selected.
On the appointed date, return to the addresses and pick up the bags of food.
Step 4:
Deliver them to the selected food pantry, homeless shelter, school.
Step 5:
Pat yourself on your back. You did a great job!
My experience with this food drive method is that people respond positively because you give them bags, tell them exactly what food items you need, and return to pick up the food at a specific time on an exact date.
Thank you in advance for all you are doing to feed your neighbors.
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Have a wonderful day!
Thurman Greco
www.hungerisnotadisease.com
Food Pantry Rules
A food pantry is what it is because of three things:
the economic situation at the moment
the volunteers
the people who shop there.
The people come together looking for groceries but often, they want and need far more.
While the coronavirus pandemic rages, the food pantry lines get longer every pantry day because people, families, deal with change they didn’t ask for.
In short, they are rewriting their destiny stories without a road map or instructions.
A number of the people in the pantry, both shoppers and volunteers, didn’t know about food pantries until circumstances set up a situation where they suddenly looked around a room and realized where they were.
There is a name for their category – SITUATIONAL POOR.
A person fits into the situational poor category when s/he lands in a situation created by an event such as a hurricane, fire, floor, pandemic, or other disaster which destroys the home, car, job.
Pantries offer much – peace, community, spiritual connection, groceries. I always think of a food pantry in the basement of a church as a cross between a church service and a busy pizza place.
A food pantry, and those connected with it, are not a program. They are a community. As volunteers, all we really do is open the door. As all the hungry people walk through the door, they undergo a change somehow.
Each person in a pantry, in whatever capacity, has experienced rejection in some way – too young, too old, too crazy, too sick, too poor, not poor enough.
The food pantry experience does not heal a person, nor does it change the story.
The food pantry experience does not offer therapy.
The food pantry is, instead, a conduit for each person’s own healing.
FOOD PANTRY RULES
Sign your name in the register as you enter the pantry.
Find a place in line.
Do not crowd or block the door to the pantry room.
No more than 2 shoppers are allowed in the pantry at one time.
No more than one new shopper is allowed in the pantry at one time.
Shop for a three-day supply of food for everyone in your household.
Place your selections on the table as you shop.
Respect the restrictions on certain foods.
Finish your shopping in 10 minutes.
Once you begin to bag your groceries, do not continue to shop.
Because the food availability is different each time you shop, it is best to visit the food pantry weekly.
Thank you.
Thurman Greco
P.S. The rules may be different at the pantry where you shop. Each food pantry is different. The space is different. The times the pantry is open is different. The management is different.
These specific rules were used in the food pantry I managed where the people were many, the space small, and the hours few.
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