Round 2 in the Food Pantry World – Food, Sex, and Money
ARE YOU OLD ENOUGH TO REMEMBER HOW WE ACTED IN HIGH SCHOOL? Everyone in class knew the which students were acting right, following the rules, and those who were not. There was no privacy, really, and no secrets.
WELL, GUESS WHAT. The same mentality exists in food pantries. Everyone knows which pantries play by the rules and which ones don’t. There are no secrets.
FOR ONE THING, THE SHOPPERS CAN TELL BY WHAT KIND OF FOOD THEY’RE GETTING. Is the food on pantry day composed of bent cans, stale bread trimmed in green, and frozen food which has obviously been refrozen more than twice? If the answer to that question is “yes”, then it’s pretty obvious someone besides the shoppers is getting the fabulous produce, the wonderfully fresh Bread Alone Bread, and the quick frozen meats and veggies. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out the volunteers are taking it all for themselves and their neighbors.
PANTRIES COME EQUIPPED WITH GUIDELINES, AND RULES SIGNED OFF BY EXECUTIVE DIRECTORS AND COORDINATORS. The rules are clear.
PANTRIES COME EQUIPPED WITH COORDINATORS WHO ARE TAUGHT THE RULES . These coordinators are trained by, supervised by, and evaluated by the Food Bank. Boards,
Church Committees, and volunteers are often surprised to learn that Food Bank supervisors do expect certain levels of performance from coordinators.
Until now, the Food Bank was quiet about what was happening. Well, that attitude has changed.
IF YOU WORK IN A PANTRY THAT FORGOT THE RULES, or if you know about about a pantry with volunteers who forgot the rules, be prepared to expect a surprise or two in the coming months.
THE FOOD BANK HAS RULES. The rules have teeth. The Food Bank is no longer interested in keeping secrets. After all, our court system is pretty open. Misdemeanors and felonies are part of the public record.
Over the past few months, the Food Bank has terminated a few agency memberships. Why?
Volunteers:
sold Food Bank products for their own profit.
kept food for themselves or gave it to family and friends or other volunteers.
used products for unapproved activities.
forgot there are health standards and that pantries and pantry storerooms should be kept clean.
THANK YOU FOOD BANK. Those of us working in honest pantries have hoped this would happen. Personally, I feel that there are very few pantries operated by people who make up their rules as they go along and have no respect for the Food Bank. These people are, however, ruining the whole scene for all of us.
If you shop at or volunteer at a pantry where the rules are not followed, please call 1-518-786-3691 and report the issue.
On behalf of honest pantry volunteers and hungry shoppers everywhere, thank you for reading this blog/book.
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Peace and food for all.
Thurman Greco
FOOD PANTRY BLOG: They Came Up on Bicycles
“EACH OF US IS PUT HERE IN THIS TIME AND THIS PLACE TO PERSONALLY DECIDE THE FUTURE OF HUMANKIND. DID YOU THINK YOU WERE PUT HERE FOR SOMETHING LESS?” – Chief Arvol Looking Horse
SHE HAD A BACKPACK. He had more of a knapsack. They rode over hesitantly, cautiously, on bicycles.
“Hi” I said in my most inviting tone. “Welcome to the pantry. Have you been here before?” Actually, I knew the answer but wanted to help them feel more at ease.
“No.”
“COME ON OVER TO THE TABLE. Sign in. All we need is your name and the number of people in your household. Then, start shopping at the end of the table here and work yourself down the line of food. Take all the produce you can eat in 3 days. We’ve got onions, carrots, greens, oranges, tomatoes. You’ll notice that much of our produce is labeled “organic.” Take one each of the different canned items. Take a can of crushed tomatoes, juice, green beans, organic vegetable stock. Be sure and take some Bread Alone bread.”
They walked over, gently touched the food as if in a museum store. Quietly, between them, they argued over what they could carry home. It seemed to them we were offering more than they could get home.
“How did you hear about us?” I asked? I didn’t expect an answer. They were too uncomfortable. “We hope you’ll come every week. We open every Monday at 2 p.m. And…don’t forget to tell your friends, relatives, neighbors, enemies. We’re brand new here and trying to spread the word.”
A TYPICAL FIRST FIRST, THEY ACTUALLY MANAGED THE EXPERIENCE QUITE WELL.
They finally agreed on what they could carry and headed off home, wherever and whatever that was.
Most people shopping at our pantry can be labeled resource poor. The resource poor routinely choose between food and other necessities:
food and housing payments,
food and medicine/medical care,
food and transportation,
food and gasoline.
People in the resource poor category are also food insecure. They lack, at times, enough food for an active, health life for the household members.
According to the Feeding America survey (I participated in this survey, by the way), about 75% of those shopping at pantries are food insecure and 80% of those households have one or more children.
Food insecurity comes in 2 categories: food insecurity and very low food security, which is a more serious lack of access to food.
When we discuss very low food security, we know that some have limited access to grocery stores. This means their food comes from gas station food markets, convenience stores, and pharmacy grocery shelves.
Woodstock and Boiceville are such places. In Woodstock, two very upscale stores sell organic foods: Sunflower Natural Foods Market and Sunfrost. Both Sunflower and Sunfrost also offer non organic foods of the fresh, frozen, canned, and bagged variety.
Both claim to offer non GMO foods as well although, for the life of me, I don’t understand how a merchant can claim such a thing. Between the two of these stores, Sunflower has more organic produce and food products than Sunfrost.
Woodstock Meats offers products from local farms which, to me, seems to be a more honest label. No one is ever fooled into thinking s/he is getting organic food when the case is otherwise.
The Bear Cub Market next to the Bearsville Post Office is an upscale market offering what the purveyor considers to be the very best available of whatever it is he sells. He stocks his shelves with canned, boxed, fresh, refrigerated products.
Both Woodstock Meats and Bear Cub are totally honest about their products. No one is fooled into believing that something is what it is not.
For those on limited budgets, food is available at the CVS, Cumberland Farms, and Rite Aid Pharmacy in Woodstock.
Olives and the Citgo Station in Shokan out Boiceville way offer foods also.
Olives offers food for humans as well as pets and a small assortment of toys and household items. Yogurt and cheeses are available in the dairy case. They also sell deli sandwiches.
The food mart at the Citgo station across the street carries more beer, chips, candy, and olives than Olives.
Two grocery stores are in the area: Hurley Ridge Market in West Hurley and the Boiceville IGA in Boiceville. For the person whose transportation is limited , these stores are inaccessible.
After Superstorm Sandy, the Boiceville IGA was closed for a couple of months because it had water damage.
But, back to the couple on the bicycles. They shop at the Reservoir Food Pantry often now. They’re much more comfortable with the experience. And, their extremely limited budget has been eased a bit by our offerings.
Peace and food for all.
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Thurman Greco
Think Globally – Act Locally at the Food Pantry
“It doesn’t solve the problem” she said. “We should be solving the problem.”
WE WERE STANDING IN THE HALLWAY OF THE PANTRY. Hungry people jammed the place. Even with the heat turned off, it was warm, just from the body heat of the crowd. Someone had invited her over in hopes she’d see the people and be motivated to write a generous check to the pantry.
THE WHOLE SCHEME BACKFIRED. “There was an ad in the paper on Sunday” she said. “These people should all be out applying for jobs.”
Yeah. Right. We’ll all line up and apply for the job you saw listed, I thought. Besides that, many of these people have jobs. Some of them have more than one job.
“Well, I can see your point,” I replied. Certainly, on some levels, a pantry does not solve the problem. However, there are many problems to be solved when we talk hunger. “Pantries do solve some of the problems.”
Take, for example, the problem of food waste and landfills.
We need to all understand where the food fed to people in pantries, soup kitchens, and shelters comes from. It’s mostly diverted from the landfill. This diversion can reduce the waste stream, thus saving much money on local, state, and national levels. Currently, the amount of food discarded annually amounts to hundreds of billions of dollars according to the recent Feeding America survey.
FOOD SERVED IN OUR PANTRY IS DONATED FROM GROCERY STORES, FARMS, FOOD MANUFACTURERS. It’s delicious, nutritious, beautiful, mostly organic produce which should never have gone to the landfill to begin with.
For the most part, pantry and soup kitchen workers are volunteers doing a necessary job for no money. This is our tax dollars at work.
THE FOOD IS AVAILABLE. The people are hungry. When people shop at a pantry, they may save money which they can later circulate in the community.
Even though many elected officials are very much against SNAP, the funds spent with this program go directly into the community. This is a financial boost that every town, hamlet, and city can use.
WE ARE A NATION WITH FEW PUBLIC TRANSPORTATION OPTIONS. Our country’s oil industry has powerful lobbyists who leverage enough influence so their clients pay no taxes.
To feed the poor of our nation with surplus food offers them the opportunity to put more gas in their cars and get to more of the low-wage jobs they hold down. The trend is toward a person working 2 or 3 jobs. If we are too rough on the poverty stricken struggling people, they won’t be able to get to their jobs and then where will we all be?
We need more pantries to make more food more available. We need pantries in schools, churches, synagogues, town halls, hospitals, anywhere people congregate.
WE WANT TO AVOID HAVING PEOPLE DYING OF HUNGER.
Peace and food for all.
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Thurman Greco
Take Outs – Why People Can’t Get To The Pantry
“Thurman, why are you delivering food to her house? She’s got children. One of them has a car. He can bring her. ”
“Thurman, nobody who has a car should get food delivered.”
“Thurman, he’s got some money. You can’t take food to him.”
THERE ARE ALWAYS THOSE WHO CANNOT MAKE IT TO THE PANTRY. Delivery service is not always available in every pantry. And, there are always others who feel delivery service is an exclusive experience for the freeloaders.
My stance is that those who need delivery service are the neediest of all.
“Hello, Mr. Roberts. How are you doing today?”
“Thanks so much for coming Thurman. I’ve been getting meals from my neighbors but they didn’t make it over yesterday so I’m out of food and haven’t eaten since yesterday morning.”
“Well, have you got any snacks to tide you over when this happens?”
“Not really. And, anyway, I can’t walk anymore. I can barely make it to the bathroom.”
“What about Meals on Wheels?”
“Can’t afford them.”
“Aren’t you getting hospice? When is the hospice lady supposed to come?”
MANY HOME BOUND PEOPLE ARE ELDERLY. The —–(you put in the body part here) no longer works, the person becomes home bound. Unless this older citizen has a large support group, life can be challenging.
The best approach for dealing with the needs of the home bound, especially the elderly, is to encourage them to use the pantry before they are home bound. But, this can be a real challenge.
GETTING A SENIOR CITIZEN TO USE A PANTRY CAN BE DIFFICULT. But the food is there and they should be encouraged to use not only the pantry but the soup kitchen and SNAP. Then, when they become home bound, they will already have a support system of sorts which can be adapted to their needs.
Current statistics, from the Feeding America survey, for seniors in our country tell us that one senior in seven does not get enough food. When this happens, the senior is at risk of illness.
WHEN THE SENIOR GETS SICK THE CHILDREN AND GRANDCHILDREN MUST TAKE CARE OF HIM/HER. Proper nutrition is a good disease prevention measure.
Thank you for reading this blog/book.
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Peace and food for all.
Thurman Greco
A Vision Quest at My Desk
IT SITS IN A CORNER OF MY HEALING SPACE – MY DESK.
It barely holds my laptop, the desk is so large in my life. For, at this desk, I am on a vision quest.
Some of my friends went on Vision Quests over twenty years ago when we were all in our fifties. These adventures mostly included travel to places like Macchu Picchu, or boating down the Amazon, or living in an ashram in India…things like that.
TO A WOMAN, EVERY ONE RETURNED REFRESHED, RENEWED, SPIRITUALLY AWAKENED…CHANGED.
Well, I’m on a vision quest now…at my neighborhood food pantry in scenic Upstate New York where I’ve seen things, heard things, felt things, learned things that I never would have even in my wildest dreams thought possible before 2005.
I’ve had the unique and precious pleasure to become intimately involved with artists, child abusers, children, church committees, church boards, crazies, the disabled, druggies, drunks, elderly men and women, hardworking people juggling two and three jobs, homeless, mentally ill, messed up people, ministers, monks, musicians, pastors, people battling terminal illness, poets, politicians, priests, rabbis, schizophrenics, thieves, veterans, volunteers, Woodstock’s colorful characters, writers in that tiny pantry room.
I’VE SCOURED THE COUNTRYSIDE LEARNING THE MEANING OF THE TERM ‘UNWORTHY HUNGRY.’
I’ve seen people in the depths of despair regain their dignity.
I’VE LEARNED TO FIGHT FOR WHAT I KNOW IS RIGHT, JUST, FAIR.
I’ve done many hundreds of other things too…including becoming a student at Gotham.
For the past year, in classes taught by Melissa Petro, Carl Capotorto, Allison Stein, Michael Leviton, and Cullen Thomas, I chronicled these conflicts. The skills I learned offer even more adventures.
I’M ON THIS ADVENTURE TO THE FINISH NOW. Last year, I didn’t even know what a blog looked like and now I’ve got two.
The first, I began in January, is a textbook on Reflexology which I’ve been teaching from for years.
The second blog, “Hunger is not a Disease”, is the story of hunger as told through the eyes of a small town food pantry.
On behalf of hungry people everywhere who frequent food pantries, soup kitchens, shelters, I thank you for reading this blog/book.
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Peace and Food for all.
Thurman Greco
There Shouldn’t Even Be Pantries
There are sufficient resources in the world to ensure that no one, nowhere, at no time, should go hungry. – Ed Asner
THE CROWD WAS HEAVY THAT AFTERNOON, WITH THE HALLS PACKED.
People had begun to line up two hours early to shop in the pantry. Every poverty category was gathered outside the door: artists, crazy poor, disabled poor, elderly poor, employed poor, disabled poor, generational poor, hardworking poor, homebound, homeless, ill poor, mentally ill poor, messed-up poor, musicians, poets, newly poor, resource poor, struggling poor, transient poor, underemployed poor, unemployed poor, veterans, Woodstock’s colorful characters, writers. They got a three-day supply of food last week and by now it was all gone.
THE PANTRY ROOM OVERFLOWED WITH PRODUCE: oranges, lemons, carrots, potatoes, onions, eggs, Bread Alone breads, Bella Pasta, packs of organic salad mixes, fresh herbs, mushrooms. The list seemed endless.
The pantry opened promptly at 3:00 and by 3:02, there were four people already shopping in a line in the pantry room.
PRASIDA, RICH, GUY, TONY, AND ROBYN WERE AT THEIR STATIONS MOVING PEOPLE ALONG.
“Will the next two people in line please come into the pantry room now?”
“We’ve got room for another person here.”
“HEY TONY, HERE COMES ANOTHER BOX”. I was pitching freshly emptied boxes to Tony about every 2-3 minutes.
“How”‘s it going? Don’t forget to take a bag of carrots. We were able to get enough for everyone to take a bag.”
“Wait, wait, wait. What’s wrong? You’re crying. What happened?”
“Oh Thurman, I feel sooo ashamed. I was at the head of the line. Suddenly, a man walked in the door who wasn’t a shopper. He came right up to the line and spoke to us all: ‘There shouldn’t be any pantries. None of you should even be here in this building. All of you should go out and get jobs.’ “
“Thurman, you know I’m too old to work. Nobody hires people in their 70’s.”
“Listen Beverly, don’t even think about it. It was nothing.”
“OKAY EVERYONE, LET’S KEEP SHOPPING.” I SAID AS I WENT TO THE PANTRY DOOR AND CALLED TO GUY.
“What’s going on?”
” Thurman, a watcher came in and told everyone in the line that we should all go out and get jobs and that none of us should even be in the building. Everyone’s upset. But, we’re handling it.”
“Thanks’s Guy.”
“Here Tony, can you take a couple of extra boxes real fast?”
“Thanks.”
“WE CAN TAKE TWO MORE PEOPLE IN THE PANTRY.”
“Thanks for coming today. Be sure and take all the bread and salad you want. Don’t forget to go down to the barn for some frozen food. We’ve got some good deals down there today.”
“Welcome to the pantry today.”
“Let’s keep the line moving now.”
“TONY, CAN YOU TAKE SOME MORE BOXES?”
On behalf of all the people shopping and volunteering in the Good Neighbor Food Pantry that afternoon, I thank you from the bottom of my heart for reading this blog/book.
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Peace and food for all.
Thurman Greco
Last Monday at the Reservoir Food Pantry
It is not necessary to advertise food to hungry people, fuel to cold people, or houses to the homeless.” – John Kenneth Galbraith
TWICE AS MANY FOUND US THIS MONDAY AT THE RESERVOIR FOOD PANTRY AS FOUND US JUST A FEW WEEKS AGO. We’re not trying to hide out or anything but each week, the number of people shopping at our pantry grows.
We’re open Monday afternoons from 2:00 to 4:00 up the hill behind Robert’s Auction. They trickle in, slowly, (some a little hesitantly), trying to figure out how to act at a food pantry. Soon, they’re visiting, chatting, getting to know one another over apples, asparagus, lettuce.
“How much of this can I have?”
“Look at this! I haven’t had an orange in ages.”
“Wow! What beautiful lettuce!”
The fresh produce comes from Migliorelli Farm, Shandaken Community Garden, and the Food Bank of Northeastern New York.
The bread comes from Bread Alone.
This event could have sent inexperienced volunteers into total confusion mode. Not this crowd. Everyone is experienced so we just went into expansion mode. Before 3:00, we were discussing where we’re going to put the new shelves we’re buying for the shed that just got delivered.
We were discussing where the new refrigerator and freezer that we so desperately need are going to go.
The shed had one level of need last week. This week is a totally new picture.
BECAUSE, WE ALL KNOW THAT NUMBERS GO UP IN A PANTRY. They don’t go down. The Boiceville area has needed a pantry for awhile so we’re prepared to expand to meet the demand created by increasing numbers of shoppers.
Our updated shopping list includes one refrigerator, one freezer, four sets of industrial shelves, and $280 more each month for gasoline to drive to Latham for food to feed the hungry.
Last Saturday saw Prasida, Bob, Sean, and Bonnie outside the Boiceville IGA asking for food or funds. Either was just fine. All the money donated went right into the grocery store for food. We bought everything on sale: canned tomatoes, canned tomato sauce, salad dressings, mustard, canned beans, soups.
We’ll be back at the IGA at the end of September we hope. We’ll be asking for holiday foods: canned pumpkin, canned green beans, canned cream soups, stuffing mix, gravy, instant mashed potatoes…as much as we can get for Thanksgiving and Christmas.
Prasida and Bob will be outside the Kingston Walmart on August 13, 14, and 15th again asking for food and funds. Without the generosity of the IGA and the Walmart managment and shoppers, our pantry would be a very different place than it is now.
THANK YOU TO EVERYONE: VOLUNTEERS, STOREKEEPERS, DONORS. We are here today, serving the hungry, because you care.
Thank you for reading this blog/book.
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Thurman Greco
Peace and food for all.
Peace and food for all.
What Hunger Looks Like in Woodstock
POLITICIANS THIS YEAR POSTURE ABOUT CUTTING BENEFITS AND INFRASTRUCTURE SPENDING TO PRESERVE OUR NATION. Newspaper and magazine articles regularly discuss how we now have more super wealthy CEOs and individual Americans than we have ever had before. The growing number of poor is largely ignored.
More Americans live at or below the poverty line than ever before in the history of our country according to a Feeding America survey. Where do these people come from? They come from the poor and middle classes.
THEY MAKE UP A NEW GROUP: THE STRUGGLING POOR.
In September, 1990, when the Good Neighbor Food Pantry opened, President Bush and Soviet President Gorbachev met in Helsinki to discuss the Persian Gulf crisis. Only 13.5% of our nation’s people lived below the poverty line. That percentage represented about 33.5 million people according to infoplease.com. Today, it’s estimated that 15% of Americans live at or below the poverty line. That number is about 46.2 million.
AS THE COORDINATOR OF A SMALL TOWN FOOD PANTRY, I SAW THE SHOPPER CENSUS CLIMB FROM TWENTY-FIVE PERSONS PER WEEK PRIOR TO 2008 TO 500 PER WEEK BY 2013.
For years, the pantry served mostly single homeless men and Woodstock’s colorful characters on Thursdays. By the time we were serving over 500 people weekly, we were giving a three-day-supply of food to families, households, and individuals in many categories: artists, crazy poor, elderly poor, generational poor, homebound, homeless, ill poor, infant poor, messed-up poor, musicians, poets, newly poor, resource poor, situational poor, struggling poor, terminally ill poor, transient poor, underemployed poor, unemployed poor, veterans, writers.
AS TIME PASSED, I SAW MORE AND MORE HARD WORKING PEOPLE STRUGGLE WITH THE REALITY OF NOT HAVING ANY FOOD MONEY AFTER THEY PAID THE RENT AND BOUGHT GAS TO GET TO THEIR MINIMUM WAGE JOBS. I served people just laid off from a job who I knew would never work again. Seriously ill people came for food when they had no money left because every dime had gone to pay the medical bills. Traumatized people came in when their homes were foreclosed or destroyed because of Hurricane Irene and Superstorm Sandy.
On a more personal level I met alcoholics, artists, child abusers, children, crazies, the disabled, druggies, drunks, elderly men and women, hardworking people juggling two and three jobs, homeless, mentally ill, messed-up people, musicians, people battling terminal illness, politicians, schizophrenics, thieves, veterans, Woodstock’s colorful characters, writers, various church people, and pantry volunteers.
When I meet with other professionals in the food pantry industry, we all agree that we’ve never seen anything as bad as now. Don Csaposs, a retired board member of the Food Bank of Northeastern New York recently described our situation very aptly when he said: “We are living in an upside down world.”
NOW, IN 2014, POLITICIANS PONTIFICATE ABOUT THE POOR: LAZY, IRRESPONSIBLE.
The average wait for a three-day-supply of food (which must be stretched to last a week) in the pantry hallway is almost an hour. The building committee allows no chairs for the shoppers to sit on. In the winter, there is no heat in the building except for the body heat generated by people crowded in the hallway.
AND, THIS WAIT IS ONCE THEY ARE INSIDE THE BUILDING. Many wait outside for an hour or so in freezing weather, snow, sleet, rain, 100 degree heat, before the pantry opens. It doesn’t matter. The three-day-supply of food is gone and they have no money for more.
The three-day limit is a Hunger Prevention Nutrition Assistance Program (HPNAP) guideline. And, it’s a practical one. The fresh produce distributed isn’t going to last much more than three days because it’s been diverted from a landfill on its way to the pantry.
While receiving a three-day supply of food, they are doing without a lot: salt, pepper, sugar, flour, fresh milk, cooking oil, coffee.
Often these people, like members of the Flores family work seven days a week – every week. Every family member has more than one job. They manage to bring in enough funds to pay the rent for a cramped apartment and to buy gas.
No insurance.
No food.
No clothes.
WHEN I THINK ABOUT IT, I REALIZE EVERYTHING THEY GET IS RECYCLED:
The apartment they rent is old and rundown.
Their pickup is definitely used.
The clothing is donated to Family by people who no longer plan to use it.
THE FOOD, LIKEWISE, IS RECYCLED.
The produce, dairy, and bread is all definitely on its way to the landfill when it gets diverted and sent to the Food Bank, then on to our pantry.
The canned goods are diverted at the grocery store from the landfill. Cans are dented, outdated. Some have no labels.
The boxed goods are the worst…especially the crackers. A box of crackers is often a box of cracker crumbs.
NO MATTER, PEOPLE ARE GRATEFUL FOR WHAT THEY GET. It’s better than nothing and no one ever complains.
On behalf of the Flores family and other pantry shoppers, I thank you for reading this blog/book. This blog is their story…one that desperately needs to be told.
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Peace and food for all.
Thurman Greco
Treasured Belongings in the Food Pantry
IT HANGS ON A WALL IN MY LIVING ROOM, MY DAUGHTER’S SELF PORTRAIT. .
Larger than life, the piece shows one eye, her nose and mouth.
Just beginning her studies at the Corcoran, Jennette wasn’t comfortable painting an entire face.
A photography major, she was painting for the first time in her life.
Sometimes I sit in my chair with my three Chihuahuas and just look at the painting for several minutes when I come home from the pantry. So much of this painting is relevant to what I’m doing now, what the pantry shoppers are experiencing.
As people travel the path to a pantry, they lose things. One shopper recently gave me three paintings. He was offloading personal possessions and just didn’t want to see them go to the dumpster.
I ALSO HAVE PAINTINGS GIVEN TO ME BY OTHER SHOPPERS. If I stay in this business long enough, I’ll end up with a whole gallery. That actually happened to Dr. Wayne Longmore, the absolute best physician in the area.
THERE’S A MORAL IN THIS STORY SOMEWHERE FOR ME. I’m just not sure what it is yet.
Dr. Longmore, an Emergency Medicine specialist, was a Woodstock physician. He practiced by himself, without the help of a receptionist or nurse. He was favored by artists, writers, musicians as well as many other people from around here. Many felt he was the best physician in the area. The artists went to him with their health issues and he treated them with dignity and respect, whether or not they had money. Most of them had no money so, when he worked to make them well, they brought over paintings.
DR. LONGMORE FINALLY HAD THE BEST LOCAL ART COLLECTION IN THE AREA. Then, the paintings and sculptures, given to him over the years by artist patients with no money, disappeared from his office after he was arrested. I never learned the real story of what happened.
The public story was that he prescribed too many painkillers…too much Oxycodone. The FBI Report referred to the product as hydrocodone. Well, the public stories in the papers aren’t always the whole story or even a piece of a story. I know that from personal experience.
DR. LONGMORE AND I KNEW A LOT OF THE SAME PEOPLE. He healed them. The pantry fed them. Without even trying, I knew more or less who was on what. How could I not know? I saw them every week under fairly intimate circumstances.
I ONLY KNEW TWO PEOPLE ON OXYCODONE. And, one of those two was trying to sell the stuff. So, they can’t blame Dr. Longmore for that.
He was sentenced to six months house arrest, three years probation, two hundred hours community service, and fined $200,000.00. The real punishment went to the poor in Woodstock who now have nowhere to go for a doctor. It puts a lot of pressure on the Healthcare as a Human Right group.
HIS OFFICE, JUST DOWN FROM LORI’S CAFE, SITS EMPTY…the office at 104 Mill Hill Road. I think of Dr. Longmore every time I pass by. I remember his beautiful art collection, all the down and out people he served, all the good the man did for Woodstock.
The place has a for sale sign, a monument commemorating those in Woodstock who unfailingly give of themselves. Frankly, I don’t care if they ever sell it.
Thank you for reading this blog/book.
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Thurman Greco
Eat – Share – Give – at the Reservoir Pantry in Boiceville, New York
When we opened the Reservoir Food Pantry in September 2013, we served about 50 households the first month. That, in itself was a large number. This June, 2014, we served 450 households consisting of 429 adults, 329 seniors, and 207 children.
ADD THOSE NUMBERS TOGETHER, AND THE TOTAL APPROACHES 1000 PEOPLE.
Our food pantry is supported by an all volunteer group of people from the community at large. We’ve received much help from local businesses: Boiceville IGA, Boiceville Inn, Bread Alone, Roberts Auction, Wastewater Treatment Plant.
We’ve received help from local friends and neighbors who help our mission. We’re proud of the way our pantry volunteers have responded in these hard times.
WE ARE ALL ONE TRAGEDY AWAY FROM LIFE ALTERING CIRCUMSTANCES. Sometimes it’s a health issue, an accident, the loss of a family member or a hurricane.
The gift you give makes a significant impact, helping us provide much needed food to give to people in our area. You help us transport this food from the food bank to our pantry weekly…a vital part of our pantry operations.
THERE ARE MANY WAYS TO OFFER SUPPORT.
BY CHECK: The Reservoir Food Pantry, P.O.Box 245, Boiceville, NY 12412
BY INTERNET: Go to http://www.reservoirfoodpantry.org/donate.html. This link will take you right to the place on our website where the donate button is.
BY PHONE: The Food Bank of the Hudson Valley accepts donations by phone. Just call 845-534-5344. Our pantry number is 2539f. When you call this number and donate, you are giving to the Food Bank Adopt-a-Pantry program which is, by far, the most value you can receive for your generosity. The Adopt-a-Pantry program gets you $10 dollars in food for every $1 dollar you give. This is the most direct way to be sure that your hungry friends, neighbors, and relatives will receive the most food possible. Please tell Donna that you want to adopt the Reservoir Food Pantry and that our number is 2539f.
BY WILL: That is one way you can be sure that the Reservoir Food Pantry will be around for future generations.
Thank you in advance for your generosity. Peace and food for all.
Thurman Greco-
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