Hurricane Irene, Superstorm Sandy, and the Reservoir Food Pantry in Boiceville, NY
The 2014 Hurricane season officially began June 1. This information is just so much trivia to many. However, people in the Ulster County pantry world are, of course, a little antsy. It’s understandable. We, those of us who live in this area, haven’t gotten over the last two hurricanes. Mold and rot continue to advance on residential and commercial buildings at a fast clip while funds for repairs and replacements of damaged/destroyed buildings and vehicles have in many instances not yet become a reality. Many left homeless, jobless, and without transportation feel to their bones that nothing is ever going to be done to repair/replace things damaged and ruined.
Some don’t believe another hurricane will pass this way again. After all, two horrendous weather events, each producing floods of Biblical proportions are enough. Right? Reservoir Food Pantry volunteers know what we’re up against. After all, we were the deniers after Irene. We learned our lesson with Sandy and now prepare to feed those affected by the next “big one”-whenever it hits.
Hurricanes are very destructive, often ruining everything in their path. Some people include their lives in the “ruined” category. Sam and Mary lost a home, a job, and a car in Irene. They still live in the area, in a rented shed. They walk wherever they go – including to the Reservoir Food Pantry.
Or, if you prefer, you can get us a gift certificate at the Food Bank of the Hudson Valley. Call 845-534-5344 and donate money to the Reservoir Food Pantry, Agency Number 2539f. That call will get us the most food for the money. Food at the Food Bank is .16 per pound, making a can of soup cost sixteen cents, for example.
If you access the Food Bank of the Hudson Valley through www.foodbankofhudsonvalley.org, the donate button looms large on the right side of the screen. You can’t miss it! Again, please specify your donation goes to 2539f, Reservoir Food Pantry.
And, finally, if you prefer to choose and buy the disaster relief foods you give to the Reservoir Food Pantry, please drop them off at the Olive Town Offices or at the Community Bank in Boiceville.
However you choose to share, none of your donations will be used to pay for rent or salaries. And, most important, this disaster food will be in the hands of the victims before any other food sent in from outside sources.
Peace and food for all.
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Thurman Greco
Food Pantry Blog – On Being the Homeless
We all risk being homeless for many reasons: poor credit, poor or no transportation, release from jail/prison, home foreclosure, eviction, lack of availability of suitable housing, substance abuse, lack of ongoing support services, being kicked out of or feeling unwanted at home, domestic violence, gambling, overcrowding, sexual abuse, family breakdown, release from military service, significant illness in the family, abusive relationship, lack of affordable childcare for poor working families, hurricane destruction, fire, poor or no communication tools to include cell phone, computer access, physical address for receiving mail, and on and on and on.
Residents throughout this country in recent years have had personal experiences with hurricane destruction as well as tornadoes, forest fires and other extreme weather events. Cars, homes, businesses were destroyed in these events. Entire communities were destroyed in New York State, for example, because of both Irene and Sandy.
Families were made homeless with no real warning. And, of course, this included the pets.
That raises two questions, as I prepare for the next disaster (which will come on its own calendar, not mine):
How do I deal with a serious weather event where evacuation is necessary?
What am I going to do with my pets?
After every major weather event throughout our country, lost, scared, hungry, possibly ill pets are rounded up by different rescue organizations and shipped to other parts of the country which have not suffered a recent serious storm. Under the best of circumstances, kind, loving people adopt these pets and give them good homes. Under other circumstances, the pets are euthanized.
After each event, much money is spent rounding up the pets, inoculating them, driving or flying them to distant locations where much more money is spent housing the pets and finding them suitable homes if possible.
Much of this money could have been saved if advance preparation had included allowing people to be evacuated with their pets.
I, for one, plan to “go down” with my pets…my three Chihuahuas and my two cats. I’m making advance plans to evacuate with them when it’s necessary. I’m scouting out places two hundred to three hundred miles from Woodstock where I can go and stay with them until we can return after the storm, fire, whatever traumatic event we’re experiencing.
But, the best laid plans are often impossible to carry out. I’m over 70. What if, when the next disaster strikes, I’m unable to leave my home with my pets because I’m unable to drive?
And, right now, I personally know of about two dozen households in the area which are inhabited by just such groups of people. Volunteers deliver food to these households weekly through the Reservoir Food Pantry.
These households, including my own, are not on anybody’s radar screen. We’re not connected to a nursing home, senior housing center, or any other facility where we may be counted. What will happen to us and our pets?
And, those of us in the area of the Reservoir Food Pantry in Upstate New York are not the exception to the rule. We’re not an isolated collection of households. Rather, there are households just like ours throughout this country.
Let’s do some consciousness raising.
Let’s identify ourselves.
Let’s let our legislators know we exist.
Let’s talk with the American Red Cross.
Let’s break the chain of separating people from their pets and then shipping the lost pets off after the disaster is over.
Let’s work to establish guidelines for rescue for ourselves and our pets too.
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Peace and food for all.
Thurman Greco
Food Pantry Blog – Peggy and the Take Outs
“New people somehow suggest to you that your world is really not as narrow as maybe you believed it was. You’re not so limited by your psychological environment as maybe you thought you were.” – Leonard Michaels
The next series of chapters focuses on a very important part of the pantry life which we have not yet touched on: our Take Out Department which served food to homebound residents.
As a pantry, we never planned to deliver food to homebound people in the Woodstock area. But, to make a really bad joke, the building committee of the Woodstock Reformed Church made us do it.
This is the story: Pantries are required to have volunteers available to serve shoppers on an emergency basis if they call and can’t make it to the pantry when it’s open. Well, Good Neighbor Food Pantry volunteers weren’t allowed in the pantry except during select hours on select days. So, we needed an alternative acceptable to the Food Bank. We created a Take Out Department to deliver food to homebound households.
Our Take Out Department became enormously successful. It was also a tremendous amount of work for the volunteers. We began with insufficient structure and a few volunteers lost sight of the guidelines and rules. One volunteer felt that the 10-mile limit included all of her friends living in an area around Route 32 north of Saugerties. She also felt her mother who lived several hours away was on the route and that a three-day supply of food for her mother included everything she could fit into her car on the way up. She was also lax with the monthly reporting.
Peggy Johnson took over the Take Out Department.
Peggy organized all the Take Outs. she called every household monthly to see how things were going. She made great lists of all the foods they would, could, should eat and great lists of all foods they would not, could not, should not eat. Peggy knew her clients better than they knew themselves.
Peggy was strict with the rules. She didn’t have even one client who lived beyond the 10-mile limit imposed by our Board of Directors. Peggy was strict with her volunteers also. She insisted everyone follow the HPNAP guidelines exactly. And…Peggy demanded proper manners in the pantry. One month Peggy dismissed a volunteer on the monthly delivery day. Whew!
We had one young volunteer who was a computer whiz. She really didn’t want to work in the take outs. What she wanted to do was completely computerize our pantry and be some kind of “Jedi” for our lists, etc. Her hope was to computerize our pantry and use this experience to launch other projects for other pantries. (I honestly don’t think she realized how poor pantries really are.)
It was a good idea but never materialized because on one monthly delivery day Peggy caught her comparing tattoos with one of the Hudson Correctional Facility volunteers. Peggy spoke with her and she never saw her again. We never saw her again either.
In our next post, we’ll focus on the volunteers who made the take out department possible.
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Peace and food for all.
Thurman Greco
Food Pantry Blog: Tuesdays with the Anderson Center Crew
Tuesday mornings were very special in the pantry. That was when we stocked the shelves for the coming week and also prepared the take out packages for the homebound shoppers.
The Anderson Center for Autism has Community Integration Outings which they operate out of their Lifelong Learning Center in Saugerties. Every Tuesday morning at 10:00 a.m. sharp Nathan drove a large green van with Gary, Jai, Marcos, Mattie, Jonah, Robert, and Isaac to the pantry. They came to stock our shelves with as much food as humanly possible. These young men were always enthusiastic about stocking the shelves, breaking down the boxes, and hauling the food out of the storeroom. They took to their jobs like ducks on a junebug. They finished up what Leticia was unable to complete in the hour from 9:00 to 10:00.
Their job began with Jai bringing out case after case of food from the storeroom.
“What food does the pantry need today Thurman?”
“Jai, let’s start with 10 cases of jelly, 10 cases of peanut butter, all the cases of cereal you can find, and 15 cases of beans.”
After Jai got the cases of food into the pantry, the guys stocked the shelves under Nathan’s direction. Nathan enthusiastically offered individual supervision to each team member.
Marcos and Mattie tore down boxes in the yard outside the pantry. Tony Cannistra always helped with this project. They loaded all the cardboard into Vanessa, the Grand Caravan, to be carried to the dump. Vanessa was always totally packed with flattened boxes at the end of the job on Tuesday mornings.
Everyone worked as quickly as possible. Our job had to be completed by noon because we were required to vacate the building then. At noon the take out volunteers were allowed to pack the canned goods for next week’s bags.
As soon as the shelves were totally stuffed with canned and boxed goods and as soon as all the boxes were broken down, Nathan drove the van around to the building and loaded up a half dozen or so take out bags in the back of the vehicle. Then, off the Anderson crew would go to deliver food to homebound households.
Thank you for reading this post.
Peace and food for all.
Thurman Greco
Woodstock, NY
