Food Pantry Blog – Migliorelli’s, Hannaford’s, Walmart, Shoprite, Bread Alone, and HPNAP Leave Gifts.
During the summer, Migliorelli Farm supplemented our produce when they donated the unsold produce from the Farmer’s Market. This generosity allowed us to have extra produce on Thursdays. During the winter months the farmer’s market was closed and we brought extra produce from the Food Bank.
The goal was to allow the shoppers to take as much produce and baked goods as they could eat in three days. So, while the shoppers were rushing around the room, they were using valuable seconds, minutes choosing from the gorgeous produce which volunteers brought in only a few hours before.
The Hunger Prevention Nutrition Assistance Program people wanted everyone to have a three-day supply of food for each person in the household with food for three meals daily with each meal offering three of the five food groups. They wanted us to serve 50 percent fruits and vegetables and we proudly did so. Guidelines included low fat dairy products and whole grain breads.
We generally had much bread and people could take all they wanted. Bread Alone was extremely generous with us so our shoppers got excellent quality bread.
Baked goods (pies, cakes) were always available compliments of Hannaford’s, Walmart, Shoprite.
Many was the week when I heard “Oh boy! My son (brother, sister, mother, father), is having a birthday. Now I have something to give.”
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Tomorrow’s post will tell the story of my first visit to the Good Neighbor Food Pantry.
Peace and food for all.
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Thurman Greco
A New Family Visits the Good Neighbor Food Pantry in Woodstock for the First Time
“Is this your first visit? Welcome. We hope you’ll come every week. That’s how you get the best deals. Come on in. Go around the room in a clockwise direction. Start here with a bottle of water. Now, as you go around the room, can you use a box of cereal? How about a jar of peanut butter? We have some grape jelly today. Take a jar of mayonnaise, too.”
“No thanks. I have a jar of mayonnaise at home now. My kitchen is almost totally empty because my husband hasn’t worked in seven months. I’m completely out of food. But I do have a jar of mayonnaise.”
“Take it anyway. You never know when we’ll get more in. Back on this wall is our USDA section. You can take two cans of each type of vegetable or fruit for each person in your household. That means you can take two cans of vegetarian beans, refried beans, green beans, corn, peaches, and tomato sauce for each person. How many people are in your household?”
“There’s me, my husband and my two little girls. They’re in elementary school.”
“With four people, in your household, you can take eight cans of each of the USDA foods.”
I was always proud to have the USDA foods. When a person’s kitchen is totally empty, it’s a godsend to be able to take several cans of different items to put on the shelves. Our tax dollars are at work here.
“While you’re making your way around the room, take what you can of the fresh produce, breads and bakery items. We’ve got potatoes here and carrots, onions, peppers, spinach, salad mix. Take what you need from the 100-lb. bags of onions and carrots. Take what you can eat in three days.”
“Over here in this section, we have a shelf of canned miscellaneous items. You may take one item from this shelf. Underneath, we have #10 cans. Take one if you think you can use something that large. As you go along, be sure and take some mushrooms, tomatoes, celery, yams. Don’t forget the Progresso cooking sauce. Can you use a box of crackers? We’ve got some Triscuits today. How about bread? There’s a lot of Bread Alone bread today. Take what you need. Up on the top shelf we’ve got corn flakes.”
On and on this went as the people circled around the room.
Months later her story revealed itself. Her husband was badly injured in an accident and will probably never work again. They owned a piece of land which they sold for money to live on. One child has diabetes. Here was a woman struggling against many obstacles to raise her two daughters properly.
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Peace and food for all.
Thurman Greco
Waiting to get into the Pantry Room, the Shoppers at the Good Neighbor Food Pantry in Woodstock Stand in the Hallway for as Much as an Hour Sometimes
The hallway was about fifty feet long and eight feet wide. It was lighted with neon lights installed in the ceiling. About six feet in on the left wall, before the Meals on Wheels entrance, was the Items of Dignity closet. About halfway down the hallway on the left was the entrance to the Meals on Wheels kitchen.
To make sure the Meals on Wheels volunteers could get in and out of the building, the sign in table was on the right side of the hallway across from the Meals on Wheels entrance.
The shoppers stood in a single line behind the sign in table on the right side of the hallway. They weren’t allowed to touch the walls or sit on the floor. They just stood there, for as much as an hour sometimes, waiting for their turn to go into the small pantry room.
“I hope they have yogurt today. Bobby really likes to have a cup of yogurt when he comes home from school.”
“Those green beans we got last week were sooo delicious!”
“Does anybody know someone who can fix my car?”
“What’s wrong with it?”
At the end of the 50-foot hallway was the storeroom and the famous left turn. The hallway turned left here leading to the rest of the church. Forbidden territory. We weren’t allowed to go down the hall beyond that point. Unfortunately, that’s where the bathrooms were.
If someone needed to use the men’s room or women’s room, they walked to the end of the hallway, turned left into the forbidden territory, and then chose the appropriate room. After the person left the restroom, a volunteer went into the room and inspected it for cleanliness and to be sure the toilet paper wasn’t stolen.
“Next 2 please.”
“Tony, here’s some more cardboard for you.”
Thanks for reading this blog/book. Tomorrow’s post focuses on a new family visiting the pantry for the first time.
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Peace and food for all.
Thurman Greco
Food Pantry Blog – In the Pantry Room on Wednesday Afternoons
We want to prevent waste and build community. Why throw away perfectly good food? There are hungry people who could really use it right now.” – Nancy Hahn
Rich Allen walked to the door of the Woodstock Reformed Church. “Will the first five people in line please come in now?”
For me, this was always a sacramental moment.
I stood at the door to the pantry room. “Is anyone signed in?”
As soon as a person was signed in s/he was invited into the pantry. Shoppers continued to enter the pantry as soon as they were signed in until the room’s total was four shoppers. When this happened, the persons waited in the hallway until a person finished and left the pantry. Then the next person in line was called in. This pace continued nonstop until the pantry closed at 7:00. We kept the room at a maximum of four shoppers all afternoon because there was always a line.
People shopped for the two to three minutes it took to go around the room and then left. In that short time they chose from about thirty different kinds of canned goods and whatever fresh foods were available. We rarely ran out of the fresh foods because we brought as much back from Latham as we could carry.
With four shoppers and one to two volunteers in this small room, there was no room to turn around, back up, or retrace one’s steps. The produce boxes were piled high along the four walls in front of the shelves. They held the bounty from the drive to the Food Banks. The shoppers filed through the pantry very quickly. A slow shopper might even stop the line for a few moments. As the people edged around the room with not even an inch of free space, empty boxes were sailing out of the room to be caught by Tony Cannistra, Bob Otto, or Richard and Robert Allen.
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Thurman
Hungry People Waited Outside the Building in Rain, Snow, Freezing Cold, or Boiling Heat to Shop
Everyone waiting up by the church door would have established his/her place in line. And, most of the people who came down to the barn to get food stayed mindful of that place. Some people wouldn’t come down for fear of losing their place in line. That wasn’t a frivolous decision because the wait could sometimes be more than an hour with no chairs to sit on. Leaning on the wall was not permitted by the building committee. Sitting on the stairs wasn’t permitted either. People stood outside the building in rain, snow, freezing cold, boiling heat, etc., until called to come into the building to sign their names in the shopper ledger book. They entered the hallway in groups of five. Once they signed in, they stood in the hallway and waited their turn.
Most of the people waiting outside the building did make it down to the barn though.
There was one group of hearing impaired people, five in total.
There were two women who always carpooled. Together, dripping wet, they weighed about 110 pounds.
One young woman came over from Motel 19 on most weeks. She had two daughters in their early teens. She volunteered at a pantry in Kingston regularly and visited our pantry for the produce.
Two sisters came weekly. They were both married, had 9 children between them. They carpooled to save on gas. Husbands and pets came along for the ride.
An older couple came weekly. She was ill with congestive heart failure. He was large and walked with a cane. Often he came alone because she was in the hospital or at the doctor’s. They were in a situation where they had simply not made enough money in their lives to be able to live on social security.
Thanks for reading this blog/book. We’ll talk about more people who visited the pantry and waited in the line on Wednesdays in the next post.
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Peace and food for all.
Thurman Greco
Food Pantry Blog – Part 1 of 4 – Wednesdays in the Pantry
Many of the people who come to our pantry receive a moment: a smile, a touch, a recognition that they are important. Our shoppers are positive in the pantry because we offer them love, positive attitude, respect.” – Mary R. Rainey
The pantry line formed on Wednesdays at the side entrance of the Woodstock Reformed Church, beginning a couple of hours before the Good Neighbor Food Pantry opened. We were allowed to enter the building on Wednesdays for food distribution between 3:00 and 7:00 pm. Prasida Kaye, Rich Allen, and I gathered in the rear of the parking lot about 2:30. We couldn’t get into the building but we could open the barn where the frozen food was stored in donated freezers and refrigerators.
As we opened the barn, I signaled to the shoppers to “come on down” and select an item of frozen or refrigerated food. Depending on what we had available, every household chose from a package of frozen meat, an occasional pound of butter, a package of Bella Pasta donated by Maria’s, or a package of frozen macaroni and cheese (from Land O Lakes). Bob Otto and Tony Cannistra stood at the entrance to the barn and offered selections to each shopper coming by.
Barn duty was, in my opinion, feeding the hungry under the worst conditions. Bob and Tony took standing in front of the barn distributing the frozen food to people in all kinds of weather because the pantry always opened…no matter what. In the cold, they would trade off so they could come in the pantry occasionally and get warm – imagine that: getting warm in a building that was warmed only with body heat.
Thanks for reading this blog/book. Tomorrow’s post will focus on the people who came each week to shop.
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Thurman Greco
The Refrigerator…and the Storeroom!
I went upstairs to Pastor Bode’s secretary. “We’re sooo happy to be able to store our food in the room at the end of the hall. I’m wondering one other thing, though. Do you think it would be okay to bring the refrigerator in as well. There are several electrical outlets. This would be great because then we could keep eggs in the storeroom.”
“Sure thing, Thurman, bring it in.” she said as she looked at me smiling.
I went downstairs and spoke with two of the volunteers from Hudson Correctional. “Can you guys go out to the barn and bring in the refrigerator? We need the one that is 100% refrigerator – no freezing unit – just the refrigerator.”
“Sure thing Thurman. We’ll be glad to do it.”
In less than 5 minutes, the unit given to us by Barry Motzkin was hauled into the building.
“Put it against this wall” I said, pointing to the one place in the room where the refrigerator would be the least obvious.
So, I got the room. I don’t think I ever got permission to use the room permanently. It was just a squatter’s rights thing. Once I got in there, they weren’t able to move me out.”
Same with the barn. The dirt floor (mud, when it rained) was permanently covered with broken down cardboard boxes. Everything was propped up on pallets. The big freezer was actually on two pallets which were stacked one on the other.
Was I wrong to have been so pushy?
Well, I don’t think so. I DID make one large mistake, though. I didn’t bring all the refrigerators into the storeroom. After all, Meals on Wheels down the hall had five appliances. There were enough outlets.
When Ed Jabbs and his committee members saw that room full of food and the refrigerator in there, hidden on a
back wall, filled with dozens and dozens of eggs, they were one unhappy bunch of hombres.
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Thurman Greco
Food Pantry Blog – The Pantry Needs a Refrigerator
I dread talking about politics because I don’t like politics. Never have. Never will. Don’t understand it. Don’t trust it. Politics scares me.” – Kathy Bates>
As I attended classes in Latham, I became more aware of the nutritional needs of the shoppers. One thing I learned: eggs are important.
Eggs offer a lot of nutrition in a small package.
Eggs cook quickly.
Eggs can be prepared in many ways so they’re adaptable to many kinds of cooking environments.
Eggs are acceptable to many different palettes, dietary needs, and food preferences.
Eggs are easy to store.
Eggs don’t take a lot of space.
Eggs are not heavy to carry.
Eggs can be taken right home (whatever and wherever that is) and cooked, safely eaten even if there is no refrigerator.
The one drawback to eggs is that they need to be refrigerated in a pantry. That was a real obstacle in our pantry because we had no refrigerator.
Solution? Get a refrigerator.
Several people offered refrigerators and freezers to the pantry. For the first couple of years I was the coordinator, I declined these offers because there was no space in the building. We had no storeroom and the room itself was just too small.
So…I sought a storage place for our new refrigerator. I planned to store the eggs in the refrigerator and then bring them over to the pantry right before opening time.
I began to contact people I knew in town who might help. After all, I was an officer in the Woodstock Democratic Committee. I had helped several of these people get elected. Maybe I could get help from a local politician:
“Hello Angela. How are you doing? Can you put me through to Jeff Moran? Thanks.”
Please follow this story on the next several posts.
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Peace and food for all.
Thurman Greco
