Hunger Is Not a Disease

Healing 2: Serving the Hungry with Reiki and an Understanding Heart

The food pantry community included massage therapists, Reiki practitioners and other healers in the line.  At one point, I taught Reiki therapy to volunteers and attuned them to Reiki. Laren was among the students in the volunteer class.

Reiki is health care for the soul.  The pantry could definitely use this jewel!

Reiki changes people’s lives and she was no exception.  For most Reiki practitioners, the change is slow, subtle, gentle.  Some aren’t even aware of anything happening.

I knew Laren’s response to Reiki was exceptional in the first fifteen minutes of the Reiki I class.  She took the Reiki 2 class.  She took the Reiki 3 class.  Several months went by and she took one of my advanced classes.

Well, Laren could have taught that class hands down.  Every subject I brought up was one she had experienced.  Laren went on to become a Reiki Master Teacher and now attunes her own students.

Laren dropped by the pantry monthly and offered Reiki to the building.  I felt the energy shift as she invoked the ChoKuRei, the SeiHeKi, and the HonShaZeShoNen in the pantry room and the hallway.

Laren offered Reiki to the building as people rushed around the hallway, bathroom, and the pantry room, cleaning everything after the pantry closed and before we had to leave the building.  No one paid attention to Laren calling in the symbols as she walked around the rooms.

This was energetic healing at work.

She gave particular attention to the corners of the rooms.  Reiki energy transformed the pantry into a holy space, erasing the toxic fear of hunger so prevalent in the hallway and the pantry room.

The floors, walls, corners, became holy.

Fear of hunger wasn’t the only issue.  Fear of job loss,  illness, and fear for the children were common in the pantry.  Fear was often palpable.

Reiki therapy is a spiritual wand touching those around us who need blessings and healing.

Reiki practitioners know that when the time is right, Reiki takes on a life of its own, offering healing where it’s needed, using energy which passes through the practitioner’s hands.

Using Reiki, we align ourselves with our divine order to extend blessings.

When I am in the grocery line, or the traffic line, or on a sidewalk, or on a massage table, the space becomes holy when I invite Reiki in.

Reiki heals through chakra points located throughout the body.  In a Reiki session, the recipient is reminded who she is.  This self-awareness opens the chakra portals for the person to become who she can be.

The future blends with the present and the past at this moment.  Possibilities open.  This is a miraculous process.

Reiki is a holy ritual.  It’s hard to get too much of this divine energy because Reiki is all-loving and all-giving.  Reiki wisdom guides the practitioner’s hands during a session to the points of divine connection on the body.  Reiki shows us the meaning of life and the teachings understand the sacredness of this process.

Reiki is a jewel not bound by earthly things.

No wonder there are no contraindications to Reiki therapy.

Reiki is a light touch applied to a clothed body.  When offering Reiki therapy, I  often began a session applying this light touch to the crown of my client’s head.

After three or four minutes, I moved my hands to the occipital ridge at the base of the skull.

There, I placed one hand on the base of the skull and the other hand on the back of the neck.  After a few short minutes, I placed my hands on the person’s body, following the lines of the person’s chakras along the spine.

As I placed my hands on the recipient, healing energy traveled up and down the chakras, beginning at the head and ending on the feet.  I felt warmth, tingling.

Sometimes I saw images and color while the recipient lay in a sleeplike state on a healing table.  Whether or not the word “sleeping” was correct, the person was usually not conscious.

Chakras are the communication system of the body.  Chakras share information with one another as they physically, intuitively, energetically, and psychically communicate with one another.

They also talk with chakras in other bodies as well.  There is no limit to how chakras communicate.

The pantry visits themselves were healing because the pantry experience healed.  When shoppers and volunteers healed from the experience, they saw things in new ways.

When this healing happened, it made the person new.

In this new inner life and outer life, the person moved forward in ways impossible before.

Pantry volunteers served shoppers, volunteers, hungry people.

Distributing groceries all those afternoons in the pantry brought forgiveness and healing.

Fresh vegetables, eggs, and Bread Alone bread offered a healing experience with abundance.  As volunteers fed the shoppers, they helped both themselves and each other.  Did you want to be healed?  Healing and feeding were connected.

The pantry was a safe haven for everyone, both volunteers and shoppers.  Healing began and continued as people shared food.  This safe haven was necessary because the unspoken word here was the feeling that we were the wrong people.

Unspoken here was the feeling that one’s status in Woodstock could make things right.  Without the right status, a person would never be acceptable.

Health issues pointed to a need to cope with spiritual challenges.  Healing was on the agenda and getting well was something everyone sought.

In the end, healing was not easy.  Before the trip was over and a person felt healed, she experienced many things:  acceptance, belief, change, connection, forgiveness, laughter, persistence, and transcendence.

For me, this was amazing.  How can a person in a pantry line experience connection?  How can a person in a pantry forgive others?  The path is simply too rocky.

For some, it was giving up anger, drugs, or a lifestyle that changed when the house was in foreclosure.

Giving and receiving food brought everyone a little peace.

The whole experience was hard for people in the line who were unemployed, broken down psyhologically, economically, socially, spiritually, and physically,

As I watched healing in action, I saw patterns.  First came forgiveness which made the healing easier.  For sure, healing was harder when a person held a grudge.

The pantry visits themselves were healing.  The pantry experience healed.  When shoppers and volunteers healed from the experience, they saw things in new ways.  This healing, made the person new.

In this new inner life and outer life the person moved forward in ways impossible before.

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Thurman Greco

 

After 30 Years of Service, Good Neighbor Food Pantry Closes June 1.

After feeding hungry people in Woodstock for over 30 years, volunteers at the Good Neighbor Food pantry were asked to leave the pantry’s space at the Woodstock Reformed Church by June 1, when the pantry will close..

This didn’t happen because there were no hungry people to use the pantry.  This pantry has been one of the largest in the area since it expanded in the economic downfall of 2008.  Before that time, shoppers were mostly a couple dozen single homeless men and Woodstock colorful characters.

With the economic downfall, patronage escalated from 25 people per week to hundreds.  Hungry people filled the halls.  The line filed out the door into the parking lot.

Before the economic downfall, people came in and got one or two each of four basic items:  cereal, tuna fish, peanut butter, soup.  About the time that the crowds began to shop for food, the food bank changed the system  to include fresh produce and a three-day-supply of food for every person in the household.

People left the pantry with bags of food:  eggs, vegetables, fruit, yogurt, items of dignity.

Church members and townspeople never really accepted these changes.

People resented the changes they didn’t ask for.  This was understandable.  No one likes change, especially uninvited change.

They liked feeling only a few people in town needed food.

They liked thinking the pantry was “theirs” when it really belonged to the Food Bank.   After all, that’s where the food came from.  That’s where volunteer  training came from.    That’s where food and rent grants originated.

With the changes in food served came training classes at the Food Bank.  Funds became available to assist pantries with rent, and utilities.  At that time, the volunteer coordinator applied for and received a $1,000 rent grant to pay the church annually.

The $1,000 rent grant was new for the Woodstock Reformed Church.  No food pantry volunteers had  paid  rent money to help the membership.

At the time, the intention was to increase the amount annually.  $8,000 was a long range goal.

$8,000 was not out of line if the refrigerators and freezers were moved from the unpainted barn in the parking lot to the church basement.

A nationally known fundraising guru, Kim Kline, taught interested nonprofit volunteers how to raise money.  She based her success on the premise that givers give.  She told everyone in the class exactly what to do.

After this class, pantry volunteers in Woodstock did exactly as she instructed.

These fundraising efforts at the pantry made the Good Neighbor Food Pantry a success story.  Secrets of successful fundraising are outlined in detail on pages 196 and 197 of the book “I Don’t Hang Out in Churches Anymore.”

The Good Neighbor Food Pantry need not close.  There is time to raise the money needed.  There are probably still volunteers in this pantry who remember these skills taught by Kim Kline.

There is still time to feed the many hungry people who need this food.  The need is greater now than it has ever been.

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Thank you for reading this blog post.  Please forward it to your preferred social media network.  Share it with your friends.

Thank you for your interest in feeding hungry people.  Our need is greater now than ever before.

Thurman Greco

Woodstock, New York

 

 

 

I got an appeal letter from the Capital City Rescue Mission Today!

I got excited!

A letter from the Capital City Rescue Mission sent me a thank you note!  Just 2 weeks ago, they sent me an appeal letter, complete with return envelope.

And, today, I got a letter from  Covenant House.

So what, you say.

Well, so that.  That’s what!

When I managed the local food pantry here in Woodstock, I sent out appeal letters every year to a few thousand people.  I never, ever, saw an appeal letter from another food pantry or soup kitchen or halfway house.

My letters weren’t nearly so nice as the ones I got from the Capital City Rescue Mission or Covenant House.

The pantry appeal letters were hand addressed,  printed on a copy machine and hand folded.

Our return address on the envelopes appeared compliments of a volunteer hand-stamping each one individually.  A volunteer got the return address stamp at the Catskill Art and Office for less than $25.

Our mailers went out each year reeking of poverty.  No professional letterhead.  No nice paper.  They were just an appeal from a  group of people who needed to keep going from day-to-day.

But, they worked.  Those letters and the follow-up thank-you notes brought in enough money to meet our needs.  We always had enough for gas and sandwiches for the staff on the monthly food pantry stocking day.

When Guy dented the fender in his car in our parking lot, we had the money for repairs.

When we showed up in the food pantry one day to distribute food, there were no working lights in the basement of the church.

I never quite figured out what happened.  But this I do know:  Richard Spool arrived  in just a few minutes and dealt with the problem.  We had enough $$$ to get all the parts we needed at Houst.

And, this I do know:  The hungry people were fed, the lights were fixed, Richard saved the day, and the account still had a few dollars left.

But, now, back to the story.

Well, today I did.  The appeal mailer came in about 2 weeks ago and I quickly sent a check and a copy of my book (for encouragement).

Today I got a thank-you with another self-addressed envelope from the Capital City Rescue Mission.  (I think I’ll send another copy of my book for them to share. ) I’m going to send along another check.  I’m anxious to see how this plays out.

Meanwhile, if you are  a food pantry, soup kitchen, halfway house and need money, you can learn all my secrets starting on page 196 of my book, “I Don’t Hang Out in Churches Anymore”.  I held nothing back.  If you read this information, you’ll have the recipe for fundraising success.

In my heart, I want every pantry, soup kitchen, and halfway house to be rich enough to feed everyone who needs the food.  I want the food to be top quality – the best.

And, I want every pantry to have enough $$$ to fix the cars and trucks and the lights in the building.

I learned  these secrets at Rowe in Vermont when Kim Kline gave her annual talk.

If you feel you can’t take my word for all this success, get Kim Kline’s books and read them.  Or, better yet, attend one of her weekends (when the pandemic is over).

Remember, in our country, there is no excuse for anyone to go hungry.

If you’re reading this post and you don’t work for a pantry or soup kitchen,  you don’t have to wait for a mailer.  All you have to do is contact a food pantry and make a donation.

You don’t have to send a check.  If you want, you can hold a food drive and then haul over all the food you gathered.  The important thing is that there are many ways to support those who feed the hungry.

And, lately, there are more and more hungry people than we ever thought possible.  Your help and support will be appreciated.

Thank you for your generosity and thank you for reading this article.

If you liked this blog post, please refer it to your preferred social media network.

Thanks again!

Thurman Greco