Hunger Is Not a Disease

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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No Fixed Address

“No Fixed Address” is dedicated to those in our country with no roof over their heads.  See your neighbors, your friends, your relatives, in new ways as they describe their daily lives in their own words.

The people in this new book reveal themselves to be both brave and fearless as they go about their activities:  work, laundry, children’s homework, appointments.  Mostly they live like the rest of us.  They just have no roof over their heads.

“No Fixed Address” is my newest book in the Unworthy Hungry series.  It’s easy to read and understand.  You won’t be bored, not even for a minute.

I hope you’ll order it today.  Get an extra copy for a friend!

This book has an extra surprise.  When you get a copy, you’ll be making a donation to a good cause.  You’ll be fighting hunger and homelessness.

It doesn’t get much better than that!

Thank you for reading this article!

Please forward it to your preferred social media network.

Thurman Greco

Preventing Senior Hunger

For years, I’ve been blogging and writing books about hunger in America in general and senior hunger specifically.

Senior hunger is not going away anytime soon.

If you read my blog posts, then you are probably interested in senior hunger.  Recently I came across a guide which you will want to read.

To learn more about senior hunger,  access it here:  https://onlinegrad.baylor.edu/resources/seniors-food-insecurity-hunger/

Thanks for reading this article and thanks for your interest and action.

I hope you’ll not only read this article but will also share it wherever you feel it might be appropriate.

This new resource may be of interest to readers everywhere.  The goal is to help open a dialogue in our country about senior hunger.

Thank you for your time and thank you for your concern about seniors and hunger.

Thurman Greco

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Exploring the Spirituality of Hunger in America – New Beginnings Part 1

Part 1

I began this memoir before I even knew it.  On the first day I worked in the basement food pantry, I sat with Mary, a member of St. Gregory’s Episcopal Church and the head of the alter society.  We greeted a couple dozen hungry people.  Mostly single homeless men, there were a few of Woodstock’s famous colorful characters included in the mix that day.

Throughout my career in the pantry, the most colorful of the colorful was Grandpa Woodstock who liked to bring his bride, Lady Estar into the pantry to shop.  The two of them went around the room choosing from peanut butter, cereal, tuna fish, and soup.  While this happened, he entertained us gushing enthusiastically.

“My, how beautiful you look today!”  I fell for his spiel every pantry day.  Those words melted my heart.  The most professional of the street actors, he knew how to make us each feel special when he flashed his peace sign and posed for photographs.  Grandpa knew how to flash that peace sign, whip out his postcards to sell, and sound off his horn “toot toot”.  I sometimes thought he spent a few afternoons posing in front of a mirror to figure out how to get the best response from tourists.

Grandpa Woodstock and Lady Estar were most photogenic with their long, flowing silver hair.  Their lovely matching beards only emphasized floral print silk skirts and kimonos.  Their toenails were painted matching colors and their Teva sandals matched.

None of Woodstock’s rich and famous got so many requests for autographs and photographs.  They simply couldn’t compete with his show off tricks.

After all, Grandpa entertained us all with street theater at its finest.  So what if he didn’t mean a word of it?  We all enjoyed being sucked into the show!

Thank you for reading this article.  Please refer it to your preferred social media network.

Thurman Greco

Hunger: An Introduction

The first time I ever saw a child begging for food was in Mexico.  I was on a car trip going through Monterrey on the way to visit my future in-laws in Mexico City.  When we parked the car in front of a restaurant,  children immediately surrounded the vehicle.  Small children held their hands out, asking for money for food.  Each held up little brown palms.  Their pleading faces looked into my eyes.

At that time, I didn’t yet speak any Spanish, but I didn’t need a vocabulary beyond English to understand the situation.  Their body language spoke of expectations, hope and hunger.

“Don’t worry yourself about this Coit.  They’re just after a few pesos.”  My soon-to-be husband tried to comfort me.  In my heart I knew different.  The child we discussed was about the size of a thin eight-year-old.  Teeth don’t lie though.  He had a mouth full of adult teeth.  That put his age at about twelve years.

In Mexico, children dig through trash for food.  And, nine years after this road trip, in Mexico City, a beautiful young Indian woman standing on a corner tried to sell her infant.  She approached my church friends first, an American couple in Mexico City on a study visa.  Bob and Sue felt they couldn’t get the baby over the border when they returned to the U.S. at the end of their class.  I wasn’t a good candidate because, at the time we discussed the baby, I was still married, had no visa or citizenship papers, and didn’t feel I was ever going to cross back over the river heading North.

Whatever happened to that beautiful baby?  Whatever happened to her desperate mother?  I’ll never know.

You want to talk hunger, then let’s discuss Venezuela and Mexico for a while.  Even now, years later, I remember each encounter with a hungry person or household as if it happened only yesterday.  I’ll never forget those people, the look of hunger in their eyes.

When people wanted to talk to me about hunger in America, it was a nonissue.  Hunger in America?  Whoever heard of such a thing?

Hunger has been with us in this country since the beginning.  Famous American history stories include Pilgrims starving over the first winter in their new home.  The stories of Mormons starving when they headed west are just two.  These stories are different from segments of our population going to bed hungry because there isn’t enough money for food.

Even though I’m the loudest mouth in the crowd when I talk about hungry people in America, I’ve never seen hungry children begging for food when I park my car outside a store or restaurant.

Somehow, in this country, hungry people keep themselves hidden unless they are in the food pantry or soup kitchen line.

I lived in both of those places.  I could talk hunger with you “until the cows come home,” as my grandmother said.  But America?  “Fuggedaboutit,” as I heard someone say once on a Brooklyn bus tour.

 

Thank you for reading this blog post.  It is an excerpt from “The Ketchup Sandwich Chronicles”.  I’ll be posting more stories from this book in the coming days.

I hope you enjoy them.  If so, please refer the posts to your favorite social media network.

But, whether you refer them or not, I thank you for reading this story.

Thurman Greco

Food Bank of the Hudson Valley Throws a Party

Every year, in May, the Food Bank of the Hudson Valley in Cornwall-on-Hudson, New York, throws a party. The employees who spend every working moment getting food together to feed the hungry, make time in their schedules to put together a wonderful dinner honoring the Food Bank and agency volunteers. On this special evening, the cavernous storeroom is transformed into a large dining hall complete with enough tables and chairs (donated by the Storm King Engine Company #2) to seat at least 235 people.
While the transformation is performed by the employees at the Food Bank, most everything else is a community effort.
The delicious menu at this year’s event was a combined effort of C & S Wholesale, who gave the food and Nick Zitera of Cosimos’s Restaurant. This collaboration, overseen by Toni Gutter and Jessica Fetonti offered a special selection for the guests: lemon chicken, roast pork, toss salad with a specially prepared sesame seed dressing, green beans in an oriental sauce, tortellini Alfredo.
Dessert was a delicious cake prepared by Hannaford’s Bakery and served with freshly brewed coffee.
Other beverages served during the evening were donated by Pepsi Cola.
Fresh flowers were on every table.
An agency is honored every year. The 2014 honoree is Helping Hands Food Pantry of Dover Plains. A table full of volunteers from Helping Hands came to the dinner. They brought their longest standing volunteer who has been serving at Helping Hands since it opened over 30 years ago.
Roberta Sherman and Tom Coons, two Food Bank volunteers, were honored this year.
So what is the moral of this story? The moral is this: even though employees of the Food Bank of the Hudson Valley are focused on getting food to the hungry, they have space in their schedules and their hearts to honor people who themselves are so immersed in feeding the hungry that they don’t even realize they need this recognition.
When people are totally focused on give, give, give, they forget they might need to have their own spiritual tanks refilled occasionally. So, then, along comes the Food Bank of the Hudson Valley offering a banquet meal to fill not only the body but the soul.
To the Food Bank of the Hudson Valley, I say “Thank you.”
To the rest of us I ask “How can we help the people of the Food Bank refill their spiritual tanks?”
Thank you for reading this blog/book.
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Peace and food for all.
Thurman Greco