Walmart and the Minimum Wage
As the country’s largest employer, Walmart gets criticized for many “wrongs” not exclusive to itself.
Although retailers throughout our country only pay minimum wages, people act like Walmart is the only one. They pretend the other retailers pay over $10 per hour and include wonderful benefits like health care and retirement.
Wrong!
Most retailers pay what Walmart pays – maybe even a little less. In our own Woodstock area, retailers not only pay less, they often pay their sales employees off the books.
So, the recent news of Walmart and the minimum wage hourly rate increases to $9 per hour is an excuse to celebrate, if nothing else. Walmart is a trendsetter! Hopefully this move will motivate other retailers to do the same.
Those of us who work in pantries fantasize we’ll have fewer people in our lines. In some locales, I’m sure that may be true.
However, I harbor no fantasies. For one thing, the people in our pantry line are mostly senior citizens too old to work. For another, those young enough to hold down jobs work for companies who aren’t going to raise the wages.
Over the past few decades, we’ve created a food system for the poor. The more affluent in our country shop in super markets. Everyone else shops at the convenience store, pharmacy grocery aisle, the food pantry.
Because of the situation created in recent years by food deserts, the underemployed or unemployed poor struggle to get enough food to eat while also trying to get the right kinds of nutritious foods needed to stay healthy.
Over the years, food manufacturers, farmers, grocers, corporations, foundations, individuals, and the government work together to provide surplus food to feed those in need.
The goal: give food assistance to the hungry.
Since 2006, the need for emergency food has morphed into an ongoing need for food for people from all walks of life.
The new paradigm is to feed them nutritious food regularly because these people can no longer buy the food to feed themselves.
Many find themselves in this position for the first time in their lives. There are now men, women, and children needing assistance to alleviate hunger in every county in every state in the union, as well as the District of Columbia.
High unemployment/underemployment, increasing housing costs, rising poverty, the rising cost of fuel to heat apartments and homes, increasing transportation costs, and the escalating cost of food make emergency food assistance become supplemental food assistance.
Financial safety nets disappear as congress repeatedly cuts benefits.
Today’s pervasive hunger undermines our communities, schools, work force, and national security.
When people don’t have enough food to eat today, it’s impossible to plan for tomorrow. People with enough to eat work better and learn better. They can build a better life for themselves and their families.
This is what Walmart raising the minimum wage is all about.
Raising the minimum wage a few cents or dollars is not about solving the problems of poverty. It’s about feeding the hungry.
Thank you Walmart, and every other employer in our country who pays workers a living wage. You are to be commended. Hopefully this will start a trend toward employers everywhere paying living wages to workers.
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Peace and food for all.
Thurman Greco
Walmart – November, 2014
This is our last tour at Walmart for the year. We won’t be returning until the new year.
Friday was quite a day: cold, damp, very light traffic.
When we sit at the table on the sidewalk in front of the store entrance, we make eye contact with every person coming in the door. “Hi, we’re with the Reservoir Food Pantry, just asking for a donation of either money or food to feed the hungry.”
With 2 or more of us at the table, it’s hard to miss anyone. People either give a donation, tell us they’ll give when they come out, or decline.
So, this was the scene as we greeted donors Friday afternoon about 4:00. Somehow, we missed one. We didn’t even see her until she was upon us as she was leaving. A slight young woman with shimmery blond hair which hung about shoulder length, she wore a flowing coat, almost a cape…a deeply red cape.
She surprised us as she came out the “in” door with a cart overflowing with food. All of it had been carefully packed so that there were about 5 cans or boxes of food in each bag.
She parked her shopping cart at the side of our table as she quietly said “I hope you can use this food.”
Then, quickly…almost too quickly…she removed her hands from the cart, looked at us with a beautiful smile, and walked away. She seemed to be almost floating. Then, about 50 feet away from our table, she seemed to disappear in a mist that was surrounding her.
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Peace and food for all.
Thurman Greco
Thank You to Everyone Who Helps Out
THE RESERVOIR FOOD PANTRY OPENED LAST SEPTEMBER 9, 2013, TO VERY LITTLE FANFARE. As we approach our one-year anniversary, I am amazed at the number of people we are serving. We offer food weekly behind Robert’s Auction on Monday afternoons at 2:00. We deliver food to one senior community on Tuesdays. We deliver food to another community on Fridays. In between, volunteers deliver food to homebound individuals in the area.
Our success is the result of much thought, work, and planning on the part of the volunteers, and generosity on the part of area residents who provide food and funds whenever asked.
AS A NEW PANTRY IN THE FOOD BANK SYSTEM, WE’RE CONTINUALLY BUYING FOOD, GASOLINE, REPAIRS, OFFICE SUPPLIES, INSURANCE. We cannot ever, not in our wildest dreams, provide this much food to this many hungry people without the support of those around us .
You, our friends and neighbors, open your wallets and kitchen cabinets every time we ask.
Monthly, pantry volunteers stand at the entrance to the Kingston Walmart for three days asking for food and/or money to feed the hungry. The generosity of the Walmart employees allowing us to solicit for funds and the generosity of the store shoppers responding to our plea is mind boggling. We will be standing in front of the Walmart today, Thursday, and Friday.
EVERY OTHER MONTH, WE’RE OUTSIDE THE BOICEVILLE IGA ASKING FOR FOOD. People are always very generous to our plea.
We receive weekly food donations from Bread Alone, Migliorelli’s, and Shandaken Gardens.
I CANNOT EXPRESS OUR GRATITUDE ANY MORE PLAINLY THAN THIS: without your help, our pantry cannot exist.
Thank you.
Peace and food for all.
Thurman Greco
Walmart Saves the Day – Again and Again and Again
We found Walmart by accident. We certainly didn’t start out with Walmart on the list that day.
It was early October. We’d opened the Reservoir Food Pantry just three weeks before and were already realizing how much food and money we were going to need. So…it was time for a food drive.
We needed to bring out the “big guns” as they say in Texas.
Bonnie and Prasida drove over to Kingston to the mall and began the hunt.
First stop: Hannaford’s
“We’re voluntering at a brand new pantry in the area, the Reservoir Food Pantry, and
we want to hold a food drive. Can we schedule a food drive in front of your store?”
“Sorry, it’s against our corporate policy.”
(I do need to relate that Hannaford’s donates food to the Food Banks.)
Second stop: Target Stores
“Sorry, it’s against our corporate policy.”
(Again, Target donates to the Food Banks.)
Third stop: Lowe’s
“Sorry, it’s against our corporate policy.”
So much for the mall and the big box stores. What now?
Prasida and Bonnie called: “Where are we going to go now Thurman? Maybe it’s time to go home and think of another plan.”
“Wait, there’s one more place left.”
WALMART!
“We’re from a brand new pantry in the area, the Reservoir Food Pantry, and we want to hold a food drive. Can we schedule a food drive in front of your store?”
“Sure, let me get my store calendar. When do you want to come?”
What a lifeline! We’ve been soliciting outside the Kingston Walmart for three days in every month since October. Two months we didn’t come (November and December) because the Salvation Army is stationed outside their doors for Christmas.
We stand outside the door with the 21st century version of a tin cup (a large clear plastic jar) and ask everyone who comes into the store for a donation of either food or money.
I have to admit, this is such a positive experience. Little children drop coins in the jar, gruff adults soften up their postures for a moment and share for the hungry. We ask for $1. We are sooo grateful when someone drops in change.
We are sooo grateful when someone drops in $2 or $5 or $20.
The generosity of the Walmart customers and the Walmart management are sustaining our pantry. The Reservoir Food Pantry is thriving because of their trust in us and our pantry. When we make decisions in our board meetings, we are not only making decisions for our shoppers and sponsors, we are making decisions about our pantry knowing that a very large group of people counting on us to feed the most people needy people possible.
This offers an added layer of integrity to the mix.
The donations of the people walking into Walmart to shop have paid for our gasoline to travel back and forth from Latham weekly.
The donations of the people walking into Walmart to shop have paid for our 501(c)3 fees.
The donations of the people walking into Walmart to shop have paid for our office expenses.
The donations of the people walking into Walmart to shop will pay our utilities.
Last Wednesday, I was standing at a table in front of the Walmart alone and for a moment no one was around. Just this huge box store behind me and the gorgeous mountains in front. Quietly, a woman walked up to the donation jar, placed her hands around it and prayed.
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Peace and food for all.
Thurman Greco
