“Are you closing?”
The call came out of the blue. A pantry management person I never, ever hear from called: “Are you closing your pantry? I heard this and I’m not the kind of person to spread gossip, so I’m asking you personally.”
“No. No, the Reservoir Food Pantry is not planning to close” I replied. Actually, I’ve been having people call me for almost a year asking if we’re closing. I always ask everyone who approaches me: ” Who did you hear this from?”
“I don’t remember, Thurman.”
“Well, I sure wish I could get someone to spill the beans because I’d love to call that person up and find out what started this whole rumor.”
If I’ve had this conversation once, I’ve had it a dozen times over the past few months. So, here for all the world to read, is the bald truth. The Reservoir Food Pantry is not closing. Actually, we’re growing like a weed.
Every Monday morning Prasida and Francine go to Latham and return with all the produce they can haul back in our long line van. They, Bob Overton, Garrett O’Dell, and Susanne Traub put it out on tables and serve it to the shoppers. By 4:00, there is usually none left. Fruits, vegetables, pies, cakes, meat, fish, yogurt, eggs, …it’s all gone.
We serve about 100 families every Monday afternoon at 2:00. On Tuesdays and Fridays we deliver food to another approximate 50 home bound households.
We have an annual mailing in which we ask the community to support us financially in our efforts.
We are at the entrances of the Kingston Walmart one weekend every month asking shoppers to help us feed the hungry.
Every other month we are at the entrance to the Boiceville IGA on a Saturday as well.
We recently opened a Capital Building account at the bank.
We are actively involved in disaster preparation activities.
The volunteers of the Reservoir Food Pantry are a group of committed individuals focused on feeding the hungry as a way of celebrating the amazing abundance which is available in our country. Only in the good old U S of A could there be this much food available…just for bringing to pantries.
We are:
your tax dollars at work.
an environmental effort as we intercept food bound for the landfill and bring it to the pantry for distribution.
working together to feed the hungry.
looking for a larger space that is located above the flood plain.
extremely grateful for the opportunity we have to feed the hungry in the Ashokan Reservoir area.
It is an honor and a pleasure for us to be in Boiceville in the little red shed behind Robert’s Auction.
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Peace and food for all.
Thurman Greco
Troy Martin, Markertek, and the Food Bank of the Hudson Valley
“You write a book and it’s like putting a message in a bottle and throwing it in the ocean. You don’t know if it will ever reach any shore. And there, you see, sometimes it falls in the hands of the right person.” – Isabel Allende
And, so says the universe.
So, anyway, Troy Martin put out a plea in the first days of December for groups and individuals to volunteer at the Food Bank of the Hudson Valley to help get thousands of pounds of much needed food organized for distributed to those in need.
“We have day, evening and weekend shifts. If you can help, please contact Troy Martin at 845-534-5344 or email tmartin@foodbankofhudsonvalley.org.” His message was pretty compelling. I put it out on the blog. I sent emails out. I made announcements at meetings. And, finally, I bit.
-Last Thursday, Garrett, Barbara, and I took off for Cornwall-on-Hudson. I drove while Barbara and Garrett navigated. We got to the Food Bank of the Hudson Valley in just over an hour. The building is a large cavern right in town with much parking.
We were greeted by all the staff and shown to our work space…How can I describe it? A huge cave of a space was totally packed with wonderful, glorious, beautiful, gorgeous, much needed food. As pantry workers, we got all excited. I mean…all this food was just sitting there waiting for some kindhearted souls to show up and sort it so it can go out in shipments!
In the beginning, we were a little disorganized. There were about 6 long tables set out lengthwise for the food products. About 6 feet away was another group of tables covered with empty banana boxes ready to receive the cans, jars, and boxes we were going to organize by category:
pantry
baked goods
fruits and vegetables
soups
condiments
pet food
cat litter
#10 cans
A few volunteers were already on the job: Carol, a nice middle-aged woman putting in her 1st day on the job as a volunteer at FBHV, 2 older retired men who appeared to have been around the warehouse for a long time…years maybe. Soon after we arrived, at 10:00, a group of Bruderhofer students arrived complete with teachers and chaperones.
After a few minutes, group task, group think, and group goal took over the space. I don’t know how this happened and I’ll never be able to explain it, I guess. But, whatever it was, I’m suspecting that the right brains in all of us assumed control. Maybe it was just a miracle. Who knows. What happened is not important.
What is important is that Troy mentored us along with encouraging words, a never ending supply of pallets of food needing to be sorted, and empty banana boxes on demand.
We, on some level, began to understand that the items we were handling wanted to occupy their proper place in the correct banana box. Canned tomatoes wanted to be in the pantry box. Cake mixes wanted to be in the baked goods box, and so on. The cans, boxes, and jars took charge.
We volunteers were nothing more than servants whose job was to unite like items in the different categories. When this happened, food items began to fly off the pallets and land in the proper banana box.
We became a cohesive working group under Troy’s guidance. At the end of the day, we had sorted and packed almost 4000 pounds of glorious food. This food was now stacked on pallets in a different part of the warehouse. It was ready to be distributed to agencies who in turn will distribute it to people who lack the resources to buy food at a grocery store.
Now, here’s where the universe came in.
Two days after we returned from this task, almost to the hour, I got a call from the Food Bank of Northeastern New York. Markertek had given us a grant. I need to order this food NOW. There’s a very clear deadline.
So, this morning I sat down and wrote up the order to place and then pick up on the 22nd. When I did the math, I discovered the following fact:
The amount of food we packed into banana boxes on that fateful Wednesday pretty much exactly matches the amount of food we will get with the Markertek Grant.
Thanks for reading this blog/book.
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Peace and food for all.
Thurman Greco
