My Search – The Food Pantry Needs a Refrigerator – “The Ketchup Sandwich Chronicles”
The pantry had a refrigerator and I needed a place to put it. But, to begin at the beginning, the food pantry had hungry people wanting and needing the hundreds of dozens of eggs we got from the food bank and Aldi’s.
Pantry volunteers needed a place to store the eggs before we distributed them. Where, oh where, could I put the refrigerator?
Early on pantry day, when I packed eggs in my car, nothing much else fit. Reusable shopping bags filled with eggs were in the rear hatch, on the seats, and on the floor. I felt like I was driving an egg mobile instead of a Prius. The only negative was refrigeration.
Each new food group added to the pantry shelves changed the dynamic, the pace of shopping in the room. Eggs were a huge addition. They were cheap. They didn’t take up much space but packed a nutritional punch. They were easy to cook. They were in big demand every time they were available in the pantry.
At the Food Bank of Northeastern New York in Latham I bought thirteen cases of loose eggs at a time whenever I could get them. When food bank stock was depleted, I bought over a hundred dozen eggs at a time at Aldi, a food store located at 767 East Chester Street in Kingston, across the road from Prestige Toyota. Aldi was the only local store willing to sell eggs to the pantry.
I tried to buy eggs at local farms and at Adams Fairacre, ShopRite, and Hannaford’s in Kingston. Nobody would sell eggs to the pantry because over a hundred dozen eggs were just too many and the pantry need wasn’t steady enough.
Aldi didn’t mind though. The store manager kept hundreds of dozens of eggs behind the glass door of a refrigerator case on the back wall of the store. All I had to do was open the door, wheel out the egg trolley, and load all the eggs I needed in large, reusable shopping bags which I brought with me. It took four shopping carts to get the loaded eggs to the checkout clerk.
I spent several months quietly searching for the refrigerator space I needed. I had a refrigerator and I just needed a place to put it. Then I got serious. I began with the church.
“Pastor, the pantry needs a refrigerator for eggs.”
“The pantry room is too small and the building committee won’t allow it.”
Next, I called around Woodstock from a list I’d made of people who might be willing to help me out. After the pastor, the Town Supervisor was top of the list. I was on his election committee when he successfully ran for office.
“Hi. I’m looking for refrigerator space for the pantry. Can I put one in the Community Center kitchen? I’ll donate it to the town. I just want to use it one day each week for eggs.”
“No.”
“Thanks.” Well, I thought, it’s a good thing I made a list!
I knew Woodstock Democratic Committee members. One was even on the Woodstock Town Board.
“I’m looking for refrigerator space for the pantry. I’ve got the refrigerator, I just want to use it one day a week for eggs. Do you know someplace in town where we can put one?”
“I’ll ask around and see what I can find.”
“How about Town Hall? There’s a large empty room there.”
“That won’t work. We’re going to renovate that building.”
My list is getting me nowhere fast, I thought.
At the end of the church parking lot stood a long, dirt floored, unpainted, rattlety trap building, a storage space for the popular Woodstock Village Green Bed and Breakfast. If I could get a corner in that old barn, I could put a refrigerator on a pallet. Dare I hope? I didn’t know the owners personally, but there didn’t seem to be any other options. So, I picked up the phone and called.
“I’m wondering if the pantry can rent a little corner of your barn for a refrigerator. I’m desperate for a place to store eggs. I’ve asked everyone and you are my absolute last hope.”
I might be able to pull this one off, I thought. When the pantry inspectors come, I just won’t mention the barn. I had to rely on food bank inspectors looking the other way and not asking about the food bank eggs.
One of the owners called back. “We can do this and there won’t be any charge.”
“Thanks. You’re going to heaven for this.”
“The refrigerator in the barn worked fine. Volunteers distributed eggs to shoppers on pantry day. Over time, local residents donated refrigerators and freezers.
Shopper census rose until we outgrew our small storage closet in the hallway.
“I need space Pastor. If you can’t spare a room for the pantry, I’ll just have to ask volunteers to bring the next shipment to my home where I’ll put it in my healing space. This is our biggest shipment yet, 3,000 pounds. The food is coming in.”
Each monthly shipment from the food bank up to this point had totaled less than 2,000 pounds. Pastor appealed to his consistory and the building committee. Word on the street was that many meetings followed and the pantry finally got, somehow, permission, maybe, to use the room at the end of the hall.
Food delivery day arrived and volunteers put food in the room. As they brought boxes into the room, I looked around. Nobody was there at the moment. The universe is on my side, I thought.
I hurried upstairs to the church office where I found the secretary. “We’re so happy to be able to store food in the room. Do you think it’ll be okay to bring a refrigerator in? This would mean we can keep eggs in the storeroom.”
Slowly, she smiled. “Sure, bring it in.”
Within minutes after I spoke with her, two men carried a refrigerator to the store room. “Put it against this wall,” I said, pointing to the one place where it would be least obvious.
At the end of the morning, building committee members inspecting the new storeroom saw a room full of food and a refrigerator filled with eggs. They were not happy.
I thought the pastor’s secretary was the number two person in the church so I went with her okay. The expressions on their faces taught me that the only people with any authority in that church were the building committee members.
From that morning on, pantry volunteers filled the stockroom to capacity with the food we got from the food bank. The refrigerator hummed along as we stacked eggs on every shelf in it weekly.
I don’t think I got permission to use the room permanently. It was a squatter’s rights kind of thing. Once I got the food in there, they couldn’t get me out. Before it was all over, the pantry received shipments every month exceeding 12,000 pounds.
The storeroom was a wonderful addition to the pantry. We routinely ordered food for advance needs during lean months and the refrigerator stored eggs.
The storeroom made all the difference.
Same with the barn. The dirt (mud when it rained) floor was permanently covered with flattened cardboard boxes and the refrigerators and freezers were stacked on pallets.
Was I wrong to have been so pushy?
Well, I don’t think so. I did make one mistake, though. I should have moved all the refrigerators and freezers into the storeroom that morning.
There were enough outlets.
Thank you. Thank you. Thank you for reading this article. Please share it with your favorite social media network.
Thurman Greco
Woodstock, New York
P.S. Please stay tuned for future chapters from my upcoming book “The Ketchup Sandwich Chronicles”.
Supermarket Abandonment
Woodstock is a food desert. Hard to imagine, isn’t it? Woodstock lacking in anything. After all, 60% or so of Woodstock’s residents are weekenders with homes in the city. They venture up on weekends, hang out and entertain their friends with foods coming from the Sunflower, Sunfrost, the Cub Market. The main ingredient for their meat dishes most often comes from the well stocked Woodstock Meats.
But, what about the rest of the crowd who live here 7 days per week? The lucky ones with working automobiles shop at Hurley Ridge Market on 375 in Hurley, the Price Chopper in Saugerties, or one of the other chains in Kingston: Shoprite, Hannaford’s, Adams Fairacre.
Higher income locals also shop at the Sunflower, Sunfrost, Cub Market. Additionally, they shop in Saugerties or Kingston at Mother Earth’s.
These upscale shoppers, both locals and weekenders, focus their purchases on all natural, organic. Hudson Valley grown food. Popular buzz words are organic, non-GMO, Paleo, free range, antibiotic free, gluten free, hormone free, and…you get the picture.
Those who are not vegetarians or vegans also shop at Woodstock Meats and maybe at Adams Fairacre. The point here is that these shoppers participate in consumption trends associated with their lifestyle and health. And, with the upscale foods available in Woodstock, they’re able to get anything they want, whenever they want it.
The not-so-lucky live a different way. The Woodstock resident without a working automobile shops at the CVS, Rite Aid, Cumberland Farms.
The Woodstock resident without a working automobile gets Sunflower products by diving in the dumpster behind the store and by shopping at pantries located at Family of Woodstock, Holy Ascension Monastery, and in the Woodstock Reformed Church. Some homebound Woodstock residents benefit from Sunflower’s benevolency with produce and bread donated regularly to Meals on Wheels. These meals are delivered to their homes throughout the week for $3.00 per meal.
In years past, the Grand Union was extremely popular in Woodstock. Community groups held raffles, Girl Scouts sold cookies, and neighbors visited with one another while shopping. After snow storms, everyone went to Grand Union, shopped for milk, butter, and eggs, and swapped snow stories.
It was indispensable for the elderly and those without cars. In 2001, the Grand Union closed and CVS got the space. In typical Woodstock fashion, residents took to the streets with demonstrations. But, it was to no avail. On April 11, 2001, Woodstock became a food desert.
The result? Many local people walking on the sidewalks of Woodstock today don’t have enough $$$ to purchase a sufficient supply of nutritious food. Food insufficiency is also known as food insecurity. More people than we realize deal with this situation on a daily basis.
Without access to nutritious food, they suffer from overconsumption. When a person eats too much of the wrong thing and too little of the right thing, hunger, poverty, and diseases such as diabetes overlap and connect.
For those of you who believe the fault is entirely that of the hungry, poverty stricken person: please remember that the community is as much to blame as the individual. People eat what they have access to. They don’t eat what they can’t get. Less prestigious stores in Woodstock offer too few choices of healthy and affordable food. They offer packaged food rich in fat, sugar, salt, preservatives, artificial coloring, artificial flavoring, pesticides.
As the wealthy and privileged shop for the best available food and adapt the latest food and health trends to their diets, the lower, less privileged class is left further and farther behind. They will probably never catch up.
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Peace and food for all.
Thurman Greco
