Food Pantry Blog – The Weekly Trip With Prasida, Roseann, Gene, and Earl the Pearl
When you’re feeding the people, you’re feeding God.” – Desmond Tutu
Every Wednesday morning at exactly 11:30, two vans, each filled with about 1000 pounds of fresh produce pulled up to the pantry door. In order to get enough produce to feed the 500 or so shoppers coming to the pantry, one vehicle was driven North to the Food Bank of Northeastern New York in Latham. The other van was driven south to Cornwall-on-Hudson to the Food Bank of the Hudson Valley.
Each Wednesday, I waited outside the Woodstock Reformed Church building with three utility hand trucks to get a head start loading so we could get the food in the pantry room in the time allowed.
We loaded the carts with onions, potatoes, corn, peppers, salad greens, apples, lemons, baked breads and pastries, and, occasionally mushrooms, goat cheese, yogurt and vegetables donated by a farm, restaurant or grocery store. Much of the produce was organic. The Food Banks owned a farm which produced only organic foods and Hudson Valley farmers donated all they could.
Sunflower Natural Foods Market also donated boxes of produce and bread which was brought into the pantry at this time.
Smells of the fresh food immediately filled the pantry, turning the tiny space into a very inviting environment for the shoppers.
As we all worked furiously to get the food placed in the pantry within the time allowed, there were always the same sounds: Gene, a volunteer shouted “Wait! Wait!” to everyone as the carts were rolled into the building too quickly.
Prasida repeatedly yelled out “HaYAH” as she lifted bags or boxes weighing over 100 pounds.
While this happened, Roseann Castaldo reminded us of the time with “Tick Tock – 23 minutes remaining”.
One quiet person in this whole chaotic hour was Earl the Pearl, a homeless man who managed to hitch hike to the building every Wednesday morning about 10:00. Rain, shine, sleet, snow, 100 degree weather, whatever. Earl the Pearl would be propped up on the little bridge rail outside the building waiting for us to get to the pantry at 11:30.
Earl was a very slight man who, until we found a coat for him, didn’t have enough clothes to keep warm in the cold Upstate New York winters. But, no matter. Earl the Pearl was on hand to help get the food into the pantry. He had a positive attitude and loved being useful if even for a few minutes each week.
After being a pantry volunteer for several months, we noticed that his back was straighter, his voice stronger, and his smile bigger. On our way out of the door at 12:29 p.m., we always made sure he had something to eat for lunch as he sat on the bridge until the pantry opened at 3:00.
One of the regular shoppers got to know Earl and they became friendly. The other guy had a shed and Earl moved in!
The pantry room, a small 12′ x 16′ space lined with industrial shelving, was kept as cold as we could make it to keep the produce and pastries as fresh as possible. From April to November, the air conditioner was set at 60 degrees. After that, the room was cold all on its own because there was no heat. Some of the more outspoken volunteers wore two hats in the winter.
I was always cold to my bones with all my fingers frozen in the winter. Never once did I complain for fear one of the shivery volunteers would quit.
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Peace and food for all.
Thurman Greco
Mike and Mike and the Air Conditioner
The pantry made demands on all of us. For one thing, there were guidelines, rules, boundaries, and no-nos, handed down by not only health codes, the Food Bank guidelines, HPNAP guidelines, but the building rules.
The building committee had strict rules about what hours we could be in the building, where the cardboard could go, when and where we could use what portion of the parking lot, where the people could stand in the overcrowded hallway, what food could or could not be stored where, when the produce and bread could come in the building, how many chairs could be placed in the hallway, etc.
I was in the pantry arranging the produce on the shelves one summer evening in the month before the building committee limited our hours in the building so severely.
The night was warm for Woodstock and I put a box fan on the sill in each of the 3 windows to keep the air moving in the pantry in an effort to retard the rotting of the produce, the lettuce, tomatoes, greens, and herbs.
Mike Cooter stomped in the room with a serious scowl on his face. His body posture shouted “anger”. Cooter was a member of the building committee and everyone connected with the pantry and the church knew that the building committee assumed total control over every detail of what happened in the building.
“Get these fans out of the windows.” he said.
“I’m trying to keep some of the produce from rotting so we’ll have fresh food for the shoppers tomorrow” I replied. “We lost 50% of our produce last week. We need the fans to keep the food cool.”
“Get the fans out of the windows NOW” he yelled. Cooter had gone from disapproving to threatening.
And I was scared.
Luckily for me, Mike Lourenso was standing in the shadows. He stepped out into the light.
“Back off Cooter” Mike said with an air of authority. “I was a Brooklyn cop for 23 years. Calm down now or I’ll take you down.” I wasn’t sure what “I’ll take you down” meant but I really liked the sound of those words.
Cooter took a deep breath and backed out of the small room. He took another couple of deep breaths and appeared to be accepting what he had just heard from Mike Lourenso.
Cooter returned to the room. “We need to fix this problem now Cooter. She’s driving 90 miles round trip every week for a truckload of produce and then losing half of it here in this room because of the heat.
Can we have an air conditioner?”
Cooter appeared to be thinking about – and considering – the request.
“Okay” said finally. He appeared to have reluctantly come to terms with the situation.
“Get those fans out of here now and get an air conditioner in a window now. Put it in that window” he said as he pointed to a specific window.
“Now? It’s after 9:30.”
“Yeah. NOW.”
“Okay, I’ve got one in my home. I’ll go get it and we’ll put it in tonight.”
And he did. He drove to his home, took a window unit out of a bedroom, and returned to the pantry with the unit and an electric drill. Together, we installed it at 10:30 that same night.
I, for one, was grateful for many things that night.
First, I was grateful for a volunteer who knew how to be a cop.
Second, I was grateful we could get our hands on an air conditioner fast – before Cooter changed his mind.
Third, I was really grateful that we were going to be able to have a better quality of fresh food to serve to our shoppers.
Peace and food for all.
Thurman Greco
Woodstock
