My Story and the 9 Truths I Discovered
I began my life changing journey fighting hunger on a cool autumn Thursday in Woodstock, New York in 2005 where I volunteered for the first time at the local food pantry.
I was assigned a shift with Marie Duane. I drove over to the Woodstock Reformed Church, parked my car behind the buildling and cautiously walked in. I had never been to the pantry before.
I entered the empty hallway and found the pantry on the right. I walked into the room and there it was: a small space, actually, about 12′ by 16′. Each wall supported a set of metal shelving units. Each unit stood about 6′ high and 3′ deep with 4 shelves. Most of the shelves were empty. A few shelves had some food:
cereal
tuna
soup
peanut butter.
There was a little handwritten note in front of each display:
person: 1 item, family: 1 item.
There may have been other items on shelves but I don’t remember them.
A small table stood in the center of the room. A metal folding chair was placed in front of each window.
We sat in the chairs, Marie and I, and chatted as people trickled in. We discussed the usual: weather, gardening, knitting, decorating the alter at St. Gregory’s Episcopal Church.
“Hi. How are you? Will you please sign your name here?” Each shopper signed in and noted the number of adults, seniors, and children in the household. After signing in, the person walked around the room selecting from the cereal, peanut butter, tuna, and soup. The selected food was placed on the table and bagged to take home, wherever or whatever that was.
On this morning, not blessed with any psychic knowledge, I was totally unaware of experiences waiting for me in the pantry. Never in my wildest thoughts did I envision the hall filled with hungry people, the tiny room packed with fresh produce and jammed with shoppers.
Nor did I for 1 moment ponder the push back I would experience as the number of hungry seeking food grew. Within a few short years, this 2 dozen single homeless men – mostly Woodstock’s colorful characters – had swelled (due to a tanking economy) to over 300 people weekly. This number finally approached 500 people weekly before it was all over.
Now, in the autumn of 2015, our stock market experiences numerous “corrections”. I realize I learned some things over the years which, for me, are ground truths about the pantry.
Feeding the hungry with dignity is the most important thing.
Single homeless men are now far outnumbered by members of the Struggling Class, households of working people holding down 2 and 3 jobs just to pay the rent and buy the gas to get to work.
The 3 most hot button words in the English language are food, sex, and money. These 3 words are concerned with a person’s core beliefs, emotions, and spiritual attitudes. Food and money, or the lack thereof, loom large in pantries.
The sidewalks in our communities and cities have become wards of untreated mentally ill people. In our great nation we don’t hospitalize or otherwise treat many of our mentally ill. Instead, they they are incarcerated.
Some of these untreated mentally ill happen to be homeless. Homeless is not a category of people. It’s just a situation that happens. It can happen to anyone.
The 50+ senior population has many who lack enough $$$ for food and are largely a silent group. The bottom line is this: When our grandparents don’t get enough to eat, they often get sick.
I’m seeing a whole generation of children who have never been inside a grocery store.
Shoppers at our pantry can get a 3-day supply of food weekly. Their job is to make it last 7 days. Many share this food with a pet. Often, the only thing a person has left from a prosperous past is the dog.
The most difficult thing I see in the pantry is a Korean War vet getting food. Something I just can’t understand is how a person who served in a very brutal war, and subsequently spent an adult life working and paying taxes should have to be in a food pantry line in his old age.
Much of the food available to the hungry in food pantries is diverted from its trip to the landfill.
There is absolutely no excuse for anyone in our great nation to go hungry.
Thank you for reading this blog. The story is true. The people are real.
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Thurman Greco
What About our Hungry Neighbors, Anyway?
“WHAT ABOUT THE PEOPLE COMING TO YOUR PANTRY WHO DON’T NEED THE FOOD? YOU DON’T FEED THEM, DO YOU?”
I hear variations on this theme from people who’ve never been near a pantry. They fantasize that food pantries are visited mostly by people with expensive cars, designer clothing, beautiful jewelry, fancy jobs; freeloaders who aren’t hungry and don’t need the food.
IF ONLY THEY KNEW…HUNGER IS A POTENTIAL FOR ALL OF US.
So, now, I offer you a chance to glimpse at what hunger really means.
Imagine what life would be like if you lived without enough $$$ to buy the food you need to feed yourself and your family.
Because…these people are neighbors. You may not recognize those around you who suffer with hunger and who miss meals. Open your eyes a little and you’ll see them all. You’ll know the names of some, the addresses of others. You’ll even find a relative or 3. These individuals represent millions more because hunger in our country is an epidemic.
AND, LIKE OTHER EPIDEMIC DISEASES, HUNGER DOES NOT DISCRIMINATE. It’s found in all races, all religions, all communities, all categories, and every educational background.
Enlisted men and women in every branch of service are counted among the hungry. They stand tall in our front lines and in our food pantry lines.
Retail workers ring up the sales at cash registers in the check out lines of big box stores and sell us high end merchandise in upscale boutiques in communities from shore to shore in our great nation. When they are not ringing up our purchases they can often be found working a 2nd or even 3rd job.
The hungry also serve us food, clean our houses, grow the food we eat, tend our lawns, launder our clothes, and otherwise do the necessary grunt work. They care for our children in our homes and daycare centers.
Try going through your day without them. Their poverty subsidizes our wealthy lifestyle.
People don’t usually grow up aspiring to spend their adult lives working at 2-3 seemingly meaningless dead end jobs.
There just aren’t that many options for many people these days.
The kitchens of the struggling class where the hungry live usually feature 1 or 2 appliances:
crock pot
electric skillet
microwave.
Often a working refrigerator is not part of the furnishings.
The kitchen cupboards have a few items:
a small bag of flour,
mayonnaise
salt.
A couple of onions and a few potatoes may be in a bowl on the counter.
Unless the person we’re visiting has found a pantry offering fresh vegetables, there is no fresh food. If the person has found a pantry, these things will be available in small quantities.
SOME HUNGRY PEOPLE YOU SEE/KNOW MAKE UP A NEW BREED OF THIEF – FOOD THIEF. They rob grocery store shelves, not cash registers, to get the food to feed their families.
A food pantry is a final destination on a journey down a path to the bottom. Along the path, people shed personal items and personal beliefs. They come to a food pantry, admitting to themselves that they’ve gone about as far down as they can get. They’re unable to provide the most basic need life has to offer…food.
Omitted from this equation is that our whole system has failed. When a person shops at a food pantry, s/he experiences individual hunger and also wholesale, widespread hunger – and looks our nation’s political failure straight in the eye.
Hunger in America is a silent and devastating disease, hidden as much as possible from our population at large. But, there’s a question here:
HOW MUCH LONGER CAN WE KEEP THIS SECRET HIDDEN AWAY WHEN 1 SENIOR IN 7 DOESN’T GET ENOUGH TO EAT AND 1 SCHOOL CHILD IN 5 ONLY EATS IN SCHOOL?
NATIONWIDE, 1 PERSON IN 6 DOESN’T HAVE ENOUGH FOOD TO EAT.
WELCOME TO THE STRUGGLING CLASS.
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Peace and food for all.
Thurman Greco
At the Intersection of Hunger and Health
I write 2 blogs. One is about hunger and food pantries. The other is about hea
lth through the lens of reflexology. They are two very different subjects, However, they definitely have an intersection point: disease.
People suffering with food insecurity, resource poverty, or who are the struggling poor experience a whole set of diseases based on what is or is not available for them to eat.
Diabetes
Hypertension
Heart disease.
Actually, these diseases can all be condensed into one: diabetes. Because, when a person has diabetes, the disease isn’t just diabetes. Diabetes brings several other diseases right along with it:
heart disease
blindness
kidney disease
Hunger, food insecurity, overweight/obesity, and supermarket abandonment all go hand in hand with diabetes.
I’ve gotten to the point where I can “see” a struggling poor person walking down the street.
And, of course, the situation with the hungry/poor is not a problem with a person individually. The entire issue is wrapped up in the community as well. People with jobs paying enough to buy healthy and affordable food have better health.
People with no jobs or minimum wage jobs often live in food deserts with no access to food. Without a working automobile, they are forced to live off food sold in gas station food marts, pharmacy food aisles.
Fortunate indeed is the struggling class person with access to a pantry offering nutritious foods. Fortunate indeed is the struggling class person who has SNAP and can get to a good grocery store.
Kingston, NY has several really good food pantries and is also the winter home of the Farm Stand located in Kingston Community Action at 70 Lindsley Ave. Every Tuesday morning at 10:00, a truck load of fresh vegetables arrives from the Food Bank of the Hudson Vallley. Last week they had potatoes, onions, squash, apples, parsnips, cabbages, cauliflower, and beets (among other delicious veggies).
Anyone can shop at the Farm Stand. All they ask is how many people are in your household. The Farm Stand opens every Tuesday morning and is open every morning until the fresh produce is gone.
Please visit the Farm Stand.
Please tell your friends, neighbors, relatives about this wonderful example of our tax dollars at work.
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Peace and food for all.
Thurman Greco
A New Paradigm for the Struggling Class
“We’ve got to do something.” I said to Guy Oddo one afternoon.
“Yup” he replied. “The parking lot’s dangerous. There’s going to be a wreck out there one of these days.”
“Actually, there was. Someone ran into my car about 2 weeks ago. Do you have any suggestions?”
“Well, he said, how about we put a volunteer in the parking lot to direct traffic? And, what if we limit the shopping time in the Pantry? Can we make some people park in the town lot down the street?”
So, we did all 3 things. They kept coming. They needed the food.
As I return in my thoughts to the depths of the autumn of ’08, the thing I remember most is the changes brought about by the The Hunger Prevention Nutrition Assistance Program people as they introduced new produce guidelines and called for a 3-day-supply of food for everyone in each household.
AND, I THINK OF MANY THINGS THAT HAPPENED SINCE.
My mind moves to the present, as we overcome (hopefully) this depression. Two things happened for sure:
There are many, many new wealthy people – millionaires, billionaires, kazillionaires whose new money isn’t trickling down yet. Will it ever?
AT THE OTHER END OF THE SPECTRUM, A NEW CLASS HAS EMERGED: THE STRUGGLING CLASS.
MANY JOBS WERE LOST, NEVER TO RETURN. Many people experienced the end of a working life during that time. The lucky ones were able to get early Social Security. Not everyone was 62 yet.
One angry man came to our pantry weekly. He first showed up the day after he was fired. And, of course, it was one of those situations where we all knew he wasn’t ever going to work again. It took him over a year to calm down from the injustice of it all. He was quiet about his anger but anyone with a brain and an eye knew what was happening.
In this case, I felt close to the event. I saw him go through stages of adjustment: shock,
anger,
disbelief,
grief,
resignation.
On a national level, a positive change happened, though: the demise of the Emergency Food Assistance Program. It’s a food assistance program still, and, actually, nobody has even dropped the word “Emergency”. But, when I listen to people in my industry talking among themselves, I’m really aware that everyone seems to know it’s not emergency now and hasn’t been emergency since ’08.
The Struggling Class are hard working singles, families, and seniors who simply lack money for food. The purchasing power of the hourly wage received at the 2 to 3 jobs we hold continues to decrease while food, housing, transportation, healthcare costs continue to rise. There is no job security anymore.
I SEE NO IMPROVEMENT FOR THE STRUGGLING CLASS IN THE NEAR FUTURE. This is our new cultural landscape. It’s our job to navigate this new terrain as positively as possible with new survival skills.
What does this mean?
WE NEED TO UNDERSTAND WHAT’S HAPPENING:
PWhen we shop at pantries and eat at soup kitchens, we’re reducing our footprint on this planet.
When we shop at pantries we actively divert food from dumpsters, landfills.
In the new paradigm, we no longer buy the idea that what we are doing is charity. It’s not charity. Charity segregates, stigmatizes, and demeans us.
When we shop at pantries, our tax dollars are at work and we are on the front lines of the movement to develop a cleaner, safer, future.
Pantries strengthen the whole community by assisting those who are most vulnerable.
Thank you for reading this blog/book.
Please send a comment.
Please refer this article to your preferred social media network.
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Peace and food for all.
Thurman Greco
