Bread Alone, the Women of the Woodstock Jewish Congregation, and the Food Pantry
The women volunteers of the Woodstock Jewish Congregation went out to the Bread Alone Bakery in Boiceville and returned with bread each week when it was their tour in the pantry. After the third tour, Neshama, a volunteer, came up to me quietly.
“Thurman, our tour is finished here next week. If you’ll send a car out each Wednesday, you can continue to get this bread. Show up at Boiceville at 4:45 and you’ll get everything you need.” With that statement, Neshama melted into the background. I never even got to really properly thank her for this gift. What a Mitzvah!’
I called Ann King. “Hey Ann, can you help me out here? You’re connected with Bread Alone. Can you go out and get bread for us on Wednesdays?”
“Of course, I love to. When do you want me to start? I’ll call out there and get the ball rolling.” To me, Ann King is the single most connected person in Woodstock.
After that, every Wednesday, Ann went out to Bread Alone in Boiceville with Prasida and returned with Vanessa totally packed with bread. The haul included baguettes, sliced loaves in plastic bags, enormous loaves sold by weight in the stores, small specialty rolls, ciabattas, French loaves, sourdough loaves, sesame loaves, multi-grained loaves. One week we did a cost analysis and the conservative total retail value of this weekly donation was $900. The annual total value of this donation came to over $43,000.
Thank you to everyone at Bread Alone for your generosity. Although I don’t know how many pantries exactly that Bread Alone donates bread to, my bet is that the number is large. My feeling is that this bakery feeds the hungry in the whole area.
ASTOUNDING.
Thank you for reading this blog/book.
Please share this article with your preferred social network.
Please send a comment.
Peace and food for all.
Thurman Greco
In The Food Pantry Blog, It’s All About Respect
“In the new millennium, our world requires us more than ever to accept the oneness of humanity.” – His Holiness the Dalai Lama
Different religions approach hunger and feeding the hungry in different ways. Christians cannot have pantries without invoking the name of Jesus.
For the Jewish pantry worker, feeding the hungry is more about doing good works…doing good for its own sake. Jews, of course, aren’t concerned with communion. There’s no reward or paying back.
The Woodstock Jewish Congregation took its turn in the pantry twice yearly. At first, when we were struggling with getting cars to caravan the monthly shipment over from Kingston, congregation members formed a caravan of cars and SUVs to bring the food over. Congregation members volunteered to work in the pantry during the month.
One month, Richard Spool simply showed up with lumber and all the tools needed to build foundation platforms for our shelving in the storeroom. He came into the storeroom, did all the work necessary to build absolutely perfect platforms and then left, personifying the feeling I got from the congregation members that their job at the pantry was to do what needed to be done and then, at the end of the month, melt away into the community and remain anonymous until their next turn. There was no quibbling about the pantry serving the unworthy hungry. None of the volunteers even seemed to be on the lookout for the unworthy hungry.
Richard must have liked being in the pantry because, several months later, he joined our board and became the treasurer.
Many of the volunteers left checks in my hand as they went out the door for the last time at the end of their “tour”. They were gracious, cheerful, smart, capable, wonderful. I could not have asked for a better group of volunteers. As a group, I adore Jewish Women. I’m convinced that, as a group, there’s nothing they cannot do.
Thank you for reading this post.
Peace and food for all.
Thurman Greco
