Food Pantry Blog – Hunger, Homelessness
Do you remember the recent story about Mary-Faith Cerasoli? Probably not. In today’s world, it’s easy to forget a story with so much information coming at us all day long, every day. Well, for my money her story is one of the most important local articles to appear in the New York Times this year.
Ms. Cerasoli, an adjunct professor of Romance Languages at Mercy College in Westchester is homeless. Corey Kilgannon recently covered her story as she (Ms. Cerasoli) painted a sign – “Homeless Prof” – on a white ski vest, and went to Albany, alone, to lobby our politicians there with a protest against her working conditions.
Her story brought up many questions for me:
Did she make it to Albany?
If so, with whom did she speak?
How was her situation received?
How successful was this trip overall?
What kind of push back did she receive at work as a result of the publicity she received?
Is it possible, now, that someone in power will understand that many people are underpaid?
Is it possible, now, that someone will realize educational institutions need pantries?
Is it possible, now, that other employed homeless people will be motivated to go to Albany and lobby?
Is it possible, now, that she will find affordable housing as a result of her story being made public?
The very short detail in the New York Times pieceabout the unnamed psychology professor who gathers leftovers from departmental luncheons speaks volumes in its brevity. It highlights how little we, as a nation, care about those who teach our children and fellow adults.
Whatever the outcome, the important thing which makes this story so extraordinary, is that Mary-Faith Cerasoli protested. Finally, a hungry person is refusing to be voiceless.
With any luck, Mary-Faith Cerasoli has started a trend.
With any luck, more employed poor and hungry people will travel to Albany.
With any luck, some politician in power somewhere will realize how disgraceful it is that we treat our professors this way…and do something about getting more income for professors and teachers.
Peace and food for all.
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Thurman Greco
Food Pantry Blog – 9 Things You Can Do To Help the Homeless In Your Area
“People are living in tents. They’re living in cars. They’re living in the woods.” – Ginger Segal
Be a friend to Mother Earth by donating instead of dumping food, growing fresh produce and donating it to your local food pantry, donating clean egg cartons and reusable shopping bags pantry volunteers to share with shoppers.
Donate food to a homeless friendly pantry in your area. A homeless friendly pantry doesn’t discriminate against homeless shoppers by demanding identification with addresses. After all, homeless people don’t have an address and cannot shop in those pantries requiring detailed identification.
Donate food to a pantry in your area that distributes food the homeless can eat. Homeless people carry their kitchens in their pockets so a lot of food which we take for granted and use is just not useful for the homeless person. Homeless people need peanut butter and crackers, cereal in small packages, fruits and vegetables to be eaten raw: carrot sticks, strawberries, blueberries, celery sticks, etc. Milk in small containers is useful.
Give a little throughout the year by regularly donating to the pantry in your area which is most homeless friendly.
Volunteer at a homeless friendly pantry or soup kitchen.
Communicate with Persons of Influence by contacting elected officials about homeless issues in your area and encouraging them to make ending homelessness a priority.
Get organized by cleaning out your food pantry and donating the healthy items to the food pantry. Donate clothing and bedding in good condition to places where you feel the homeless will have access to some of the items.
Understand that returning vets have special needs and they often begin their separation from the military homeless.
Know that people being released from prison often are homeless. They no longer have contact with their community. They have no job. They have no place to go.
Help set up a pocket pantry in a church, synagogue, or school.
Peace and food for all.
Please share this article with your favorite social network.
Thurman Greco
Food Pantry Blog: Guidelines for a Successful Pantry Visit
“But the most careful lives can be derailed – by cancer, a huge medical bill, a freak slap of weather, a massive failure of the potato crop. Virtue cannot prevent a “bad hand” from being dealt. And making the poor out to be lazy, or dependent, or stupid, does not make them less poor. It only makes the person saying such a thing feel superior.” – Timothy Egan
Try to arrive an hour or so before the pantry opens. This makes for a long wait but there’s a better selection right when the pantry opens. Also, while you’re waiting in line, you have an opportunity to make new friends and learn a few new survival skills if you’re new to the pantry experience.
Bring your own shopping bags. Some pantries don’t have enough of these necessary items.
Bring some ID. Some pantries require a lot: picture ID, proof of address, proof that other family members exist. This can be a bit of a challenge if you’re homeless. Two things you need to know: No one can ask to see your social security number. Some pantries require no identification.
Be prepared to wait in a line. Use this time to meet your line neighbors. They can be helpful if you’re trying to navigate your way through Department of Social Services, if you’re being foreclosed on, need your car repaired.
As you wait in line, try to learn how the pantry works from those around you in the line. You’ll want to know how long you’ll be in the shopping room, what foods are usually found on the shelves, what other pantries the people shop at, etc.
Don’t be afraid to let people know you’ve never been to a pantry before.
Once you find a pantry you can use, go every time you’re allowed. With luck, you’ll have a pantry in your area allowing weekly visits. Because pantry shopping takes so much time, shoppers sometimes just don’t go if they still have SNAP card money or if they have a few bucks remaining from a paycheck. Your best bet is to visit a pantry as often as you’re allowed. Most pantries have different food every week and you may miss out on some real savings by not shopping regularly.
Pantry shopping requires a totally new approach to cooking. So does cooking with only an electric skillet or microwave. Some pantries have periodic visits from nutritionists. Don’t be shy about asking him/her for any tips you might be able to use to help this adjustment easier for you. The nutritionist knows a lot about the food you are trying to cook with and s/he can answer any questions you have.
You may see fresh fruits and vegetables you don’t recognize. Be open to new taste experiences. Take the food home, find a cookbook at the library or go on the net and learn how to prepare the food. If you take one new food home each week, your kitchen skills will be vastly different in a year from what they are now.
Be open minded about this experience.
You’re going to be interacting with people you never thought in your wildest dreams that you would be around.
Know that most people in pantries, both volunteers and shoppers, are in a reconstructing and healing mode. We may not know it yet, but life is finally getting better for all of us.
Try to volunteer at your pantry. Volunteering at a pantry or soup kitchen offers you an opportunity to give of yourself. Giving away food and sharing smiles with those around you opens up opportunities you never thought possible. Your life is changing, healing. Give yourself the opportunity to go with this journey.
Sometimes people cry in the pantry. Well, it’s okay. Everyone cries at one time or another in the pantry, including me. This tells us all that the pantry is a safe place to be.
Peace and food for all.
Thank you for reading this blog/book.
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Thurman Greco
Leaving the Past Behind…so we can Heal
“Nothing goes away until it has taught us what we need to know.”
– Pema Chodon
All of us, whether we come to the pantry as shoppers or volunteers, or both, are asked by the pantry to leave our past behind. And, of course, that’s different for everyone. But, think about it, how can we move forward into our new lives if we never give anything up?
For some, giving up the past means letting go of the job that was lost, the home, maybe the family, self-esteem, the car, good health, money, insurance, etc.
As we release our past, our baggage weighs less and less. Our prejudices become fewer and fewer. Our fears are often diminished.
Then…we can heal.
Everyone coming to the pantry heals on some level. The community offered by the pantry gives support and approval to people as they climb back on the road to wellness and something offering normalcy.
In many instances, the shoppers become the volunteers or…the volunteers become the shoppers.
The shoppers come to get food and then find out they can volunteer. Volunteering changes them. As a person gives out food, the volunteer makes contact with another person, and is able to smile. The person is drawn out of his/her own problems. In offering a sense of community, the volunteer receives so much more.
Some of these things are very physical, some emotional, and some mental. But, whether the “giving up” experiences are physical, mental, emotional, one thing is certain. All of these experiences have a spiritual aspect.
One of my “giving up” experiences was also very public.
In tomorrow’s post, we’ll continue with the stories of volunteers illustrating the “leaving the past behind” concept.
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Thank you for reading this blog/book.
Peace and food for all.
Thurman Greco
Family of Woodstock Comes to the Pantry’s Rescue Two Years in a Row
Family of Woodstock was a real lifesaver for our pantry those first two Decembers I was the coordinator. The first year word spread that our shelves were empty. I got a call from Tamara Cooper.
“Thurman, can you come over here immediately? We just got a donation of food from someone and we have no place to put it. If you come over right now, you can have it all.”
Can I come over immediately? WOW I was there! It was glorious! I stuffed my car with grocery bags filled with canned and boxed goods of every kind. Thank you Tamara Cooper.
In October of the following year, I saw Michael Berg at a meeting at Mohonk Mountain House. I went over to him, introduced myself, and told him that Decembers were grim in our pantry. In December I got another call from Family. This time we were given a large number of Hannaford’s holiday gift boxes filled with pasta, tomato sauce, tuna fish, chicken noodle soup, etc. Thank you Michael Berg. Thank you to everyone at Family of Woodstock. Thank you to Hannaford’s. And, thank you to everyone who buys a gift box of food for the hungry at Hannaford’s.
By 2010, I was ready for August and December. I finagled a storeroom out of the building committee of the Woodstock Reformed Church. I even got permission for a refrigerator to go in it. The storeroom effort was a total scene – especially the refrigerator. I got permission from the pastor’s secretary who gave me the go ahead because everyone was out of the building.
Looking back at the whole event, I realize that Divine Guidance removed everyone from the building that morning. If anyone had been there the pantry would never have gotten even the storeroom…much less the refrigerator. Thank you God.
Except for the stress that my presence in this space (which was severe) caused the building committee and church members, the storeroom was a wonderful addition to the pantry. We were now able to order food for advance needs during lean months and the refrigerator, even though small, stored eggs.
The storeroom made all the difference. As my grandmother would have said “We were cooking with gas over at the Good Neighbor Food Pantry”.
Thank you for reading this blog post.
Peace and food for all.
Thurman Greco
Woodstock
The Food Coming to Our Pantry from the Food Bank Has Been Diverted From a Landfill
There’s absolutely no excuse for anyone in our great country to go hungry.
The third category was Donated Food. This was usually canned or boxed food in really good condition which manufacturers couldn’t sell or supermarkets had overstocked.
All the cans had labels in good condition and none of the cans were dented.
Popular donated items included Barilla Pasta, Breyer’s Ice Cream, Cheez-It Crackers, Chobani Yogurt, Hellman’s Mayonnaise, Hunt’s Products, Kellogg’s Cereals, Lipton Teas, Nestea, Pepsi products, Progresso Soup, Suave Shampoos, Tide soap, Triscuit Crackers, V-8 Juices.
Co-op was the fourth category. The food in this category was offered at more or less grocery store prices. Coop food supplements the donated food inventory. The Coop food enables the Food Bank to have an inventory which meets the needs of the agencies. Except for toilet paper and eggs, I rarely bought from this category because our pantry simply couldn’t afford the costs. Even so, the eggs were a few cents cheaper than anywhere else and the toilet paper was important to the households with no funds.
Eggs were always a challenge. They’re only available through the pantry in the Co-op section of the catalogue. They were rarely in the refrigerator case at the Food Bank when we went for produce and dairy products weekly. Purchasing the eggs locally was hard because we needed about 150-200 dozen eggs at a time. My main source when we couldn’t connect with the food bank was Aldi. They were about the only store that really didn’t care how many dozen eggs we bought. Price Chopper in Saugerties was a real lifesaver a couple of times also.
One winter I was having a really tough time getting soup. Then, Progresso donated a large load of soup to the Food Bank. Hurrah! After hurricane Sandy, ConAgra sent a generous load of canned goods to the food bank. To this day, two favorite words in my vocabulary are Progresso and ConAgra.
Thanks for reading these Food Bank posts. I hope they’re answering questions for you. Tomorrow’s post will begin with a discussion of dumpster diving and months when we had almost nothing.
Peace and food for all.
Thurman Greco
Woodstock, NY
Bonnie, Michelle, Nora and the Salvage Food Order at The Food Bank
In yesterday’s post, I started the monthly order.
In a good month, I ordered 16 cases each of a large variety of canned/boxed goods: peanut butter, canned beans, canned refried beans, canned green beans, pasta, and oatmeal for example.
In a bad month, I would only be able to get my allotment of a couple of things: tomato sauce, and dried plums, for example.
Bonnie, my primary contact for the Food Bank food orders, spent time telling me politely on Monday and Tuesday that most of what I wanted was already out of stock. As the week progressed, the outlook usually improved. By Friday, some of the stock had been replenished, new merchandise was on the shelves and the order was as good as it was going to get. Michelle and Nora were also available when Bonnie’s line was busy.
These 3 women, Bonnie, Michelle, and Nora, spent their work days on the phone listening to desperate pantry coordinators, soup kitchen managers, shelter directors, ordering food. While they were assisting an agency person on the phone there was always a list of people waiting for their turn to add their needs to the day’s list.
Generally, food items were depleted as fast as they came on the computer screen. That’s why we called throughout the week. Nothing was ever available for more than a day or 2.
“We just got in a shipment of USDA” was music to my ears.
Then would come the order for salvage bulk food categories. These were banana boxes filled with 40 pounds of canned/boxed/bottled foods in specific categories such as fruits and vegetables, condiments, juices, pantry, soup, etc. As a pantry, I was able to get this food at 16 cents per pound. These boxes were wonderful. They were wonderful to me, anyway.
In reality, they were something else altogether.
Salvage food is made up of the dented cans and crumpled boxes that are pushed aside at the grocery store.
They are either collected at the store and brought over by the store itself to the Food Bank or a Food Bank truck drives around picking the food up and taking it to the Food Bank. Food Bank volunteers clean and sort these items. Salvage boxes offer variety to pantries, soup kitchens, and shelters. This is where we get the occasional spice or herb, can of olive oil, box of cooking chocolate, jar of pickles.
Another favorite refrain I liked to hear from Bonnie or Michelle was “I can let you have 5 boxes of pantry today.” Once I was able to order 24 boxes of salvage products. I felt like I was being rewarded by the universe for something I must’ve done right. I never quite figured out what it was that I did. But this I know: life was beautiful that week.
Thanks for reading this post.
There is absolutely no excuse for anyone in our country to go hungry.
Peace and Food for all.
Thurman Greco
Woodstock, NY
Peace and food for all.
Thurman Greco
Woodstock, NY
In the Food Pantry Blog – It’s All About Respect – Part 2
For the followers of the Buddhist, Hindus, and other Eastern religions, feeding the hungry is about selfless service. The pantry had a few practicing Buddhists and one practicing Hindu.
Jo, a Buddhist from Palden Sakya, sometimes came on Wednesday evenings at 6:00 to help bag the bread which Prasida brought from the Bread Alone bakery in Boiceville. Most of the time we had 2 or 3 volunteers to help but occasionally Jo would just bag the bread herself. Stuart Kline sometimes came to help her. When no one was available to help, she didn’t complain, criticize, or appear to judge. Occasionally, if there was time after she packed the bread, she grabbed a broom and swept.
The Hindu, Prasida, was a strong woman of Polish descent. She felt nothing weighed too much for her to carry and no task was too large or too small. Prasida started the day on Wednesday at 6:00 a.m. by driving our truck, Miriam’s Well, to Latham for food. At the Food Bank, she shopped and selected about 2,000 to 3,000 pounds of produce: lettuce, tomatoes, potatoes, onions, baked goods, yogurt, local cheese, fresh milk, mushrooms, carrots, anything organic she could find. She loaded it onto the truck. Then drove back to Woodstock where she unloaded the food off the truck and hauled it into the pantry. After that, she went with Tall Thin John, Bad Back Bob, and Guy Oddo to Woodstock Commons to distribute food there to the residents.
Then, as if that wasn’t enough, Prasida hustled back to the pantry and opened it up promptly at 3:00 as she signed in 200-300 people for the pantry.
Then, about 4:15, Prasida turned her desk job over to Guy and drove off down the road to Bread Alone in Vanessa with Ann King to get the bread. She returned exactly at 6:00 with the Dodge Grand Caravan packed to the roof with freshly baked bread.
Then, Prasida unloaded the bread, and resumed her desk job until the pantry closed at 7:00, when she cleaned the floors. WHEW
Having watched volunteers from the three religions in action, I truly believe the Jews, Buddhists, and Hindus are more active in their approach. I never once heard one Jew, Buddhist, or Hindu try to turn people away or refer to the “unworthy hungry”. “Unworthy hungry” is a term I first heard from a local Lutheran Minister. I learned very quickly in the game that area Methodists, Episcopalians, Catholics, and Dutch Reformed followers were familiar with the label.
So, I suppose that my feeling is that the Jews, Buddhists, and Hindus have owned the concept of “feeding the poor” since the beginning of time. Christians picked up on the “feeding the poor” concept that Jesus taught.
With the next few posts, we’ll focus on the most asked about part of pantry management: where the food comes from.
Thank you for reading these posts in this blog/book. Pantries are hidden away places that more people need to know about.
Peace and food for all.
Thurman Greco
Woodstock
Food Pantry Blog: The Church in the Basement
“For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me.” – Matthew 25:35
Every week the pantry attracted several hundred people to the basement of the Woodstock Reformed Church. People experienced community, gratitude, healing and shared food. The isolation often felt by the hungry and homeless was diminished somewhat in the pantry. In fact, the pantry changed all of us for the better. For me, that was church. It was the best attended service in that building each week. In the basement, no less.
This basement pantry opened every Tuesday morning as we prepared and delivered the take outs, and Wednesday and Thursday afternoons when we served groceries to shoppers lined up in the hallway and outside the building. We found ceremony hidden in the way we processed the shoppers through the rooms.
An Episcopalian Priest once told me that the only thing we really know about Jesus was that He fed the hungry. He fed the hungry and then He said to those around him “Now you feed them.”
And, to my mind, that’s what communion is all about: serving everyone who comes.
And, of course, that brings up a whole other issue. As people go down the path to the pantry, they begin to lose things. Life becomes less complicated. One of the downsides of this newfound simplicity is that people become isolated and somewhat cutoff from their communities. As the money goes, many activities go also, one of them being the weekly visit to a church or synagogue. Church/synagogue becomes too expensive, not only for the tithing but also for the other things needed: clothes to wear to the services and other activities, money for the collection plate, things to donate to projects, fellowship activities.
Circumstances encourage congregations to discourage families and individual members at the moment they need it the most. As people no longer fit in, their presence is discouraged. It appears the congregations don’t want anyone to disrupt the ceremony and spiritual solitude in any way.
The closest many shoppers ever got to a church or synagogue service was the pantry line in the basement of the Woodstock Reformed Church. There was a very definite hunger for spiritual connection.
A food pantry is another way of having a religious service. The sharing of the food is the prayer. The distribution of food in the pantry was a spiritual transaction.
Each week I opened the pantry when I unlocked the outside door with a key. The building, housing a beautiful, empty sanctuary was kept locked. The sanctuary was kept locked also. As a pantry volunteer, we were allowed only in the part of the hallway where the pantry and storeroom were located.
In this part of the hallway, shoppers waited for over an hour sometimes in a cramped space to sign their name so they could enter into an even more crowded room to select a 3-day supply of food which they had to make last 7 days.
More than once I heard people ask if they could sit in the sanctuary for a moment. “Sorry. The sanctuary is locked.” I always replied.
Sadly, more than once I heard people in the hallway discussing the beautiful sanctuary, the historical church building. When this happened I always heard the comment: “I hear very few people come to this church anymore.”
Peace and food for all.
Thurman Greco
Woodstock, NY
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Homelessness and Mental Illness: A Comment on Nicholas Kristoff’s Blog
I sent the following letter to Mr. Nicholas Kristoff in response to his Feb. 9, 2014, story in the New York Times about mentally ill inmates in jails.
Dear Mr. Kristoff:
While you were describing the plight of these incarcerated people, I submit to you that the people illustrated in your story are the lucky ones.
As a coordinator of a food pantry in Ulster County, New York, I interact with mentally ill people every time the pantry is open.
It’s difficult for a mentally ill person to navigate in our culture. Many of them end up homeless. On January 31, 2014, we were out in 9 degree weather doing a Point in Time Census of homeless people for HUD. We went under bridges, behind the mall in Kingston, to the cemetery, into abandoned buildings, etc.
Not everyone who is homeless is standing on the street with a sign and a cup. Every time I walk down a street now anywhere, I see inconspicuous and unnoticed homeless people. The sidewalks and streets of America have become one large ward for the mentally ill.
Homelessness accompanies a number of mental illnesses including schizophrenia and bipolar disorders. Mentally ill persons have a tendency to become chronically homeless. According to a HUD definition, a person who’s been homeless at least 4 times in the past 3 years or who has been homeless for more than 1 year, is considered homeless. It’s believed by MentalIllnessPolicy.org that there are over 250,000 seriously mentally ill homeless persons in our country.
The bottom line here is that many people are living on the streets coping not only with the problems of homelessness but also the mental illness they are afflicted with. While a seriously mentally ill person is trying to survive on the streets dealing with things like dumpster diving for food, s/he is also dealing with being robbed, beaten, etc. And, finally, s/he is not being treated for disease.
My conclusion: better to be in jail.
Peace and food for all.
Thurman Greco
