2 of 3

During a two-hour shift, I help maybe eight people. Each client is as different as the patterns in a kaleidoscope: retirees, the mentally ill, single mothers, young men fallen on hard times. Many are immigrants who speak no English: a Vietnamese woman with children, a refugee family from Sudan, an elderly woman from Ukraine. When confronted with such donated items as Suddenly Salad, Hostess Ding Dongs, bags of pastel-colored marshmallows, or SpaghettiOs, they are baffled. Even with an interpreter, they have difficulty bridging the culinary cultural barrier. If you have always shopped at an open-air market for your family, how do you understand instant mashed potatoes? Hamburger Helper? Fruit Roll-Ups?

Not everyone is grateful. Some clients, angry about their circumstances, refuse eye contact, choose foods as quickly as possible, and leave without saying more than a few words. Others take their frustration out on the volunteers. One woman lectured me on my "short shorts" (it was July, and we were sweltering). Another badgered me to let her pack her basket past the "full line," refusing to take no for an answer until a supervisor intervened. A few take advantage, packing their baskets with the most expensive items on the shelves while telling me that "other food pantries have a much better selection than yours."

If you volunteer to feel good about yourself, you'll work a few shifts, then give it up. Lofty ideals shatter like a stained-glass window pelted by rocks. Some days I wonder, Do food pantries really help?

"Who are we to judge who is truly hungry?" asked Susan Papierski, assistant director at the Glen Ellyn Food Pantry, acknowledging that she gets discouraged sometimes, too. "It's that one person who really needs our services. I look at them and say, 'That's why I'm here.'?"

She reminded me that hunger isn't always obvious. "It can look like you and me, or it can be your neighbor and you don't even know about it." What helps her, she said, is hearing from donors who used to be clients, got back on their feet, and now help support the pantry.

When I am discouraged, I also think of the kids. As Fraser at Feeding America told me, "Children are not responsible for their circumstances." Then he quoted a popular saying at his organization: "A child who is hungry cannot learn; they become an adult who cannot earn." Making sure no one goes hungry makes not only moral sense but practical and economic sense as well.

It's the grateful clients and the success stories that stick in my mind:

• The refugee mother whose son went on to attend Harvard on a full scholarship.
• The suburban mom who thanked me and "God blessed" me more times in 15 minutes than I could count.
• The kind, elderly man from Florence who cracked jokes and laughed at my attempts to speak a few words of Italian as we selected pasta and cannellini beans.
• The mother of the refugee family of six who showed palpable relief as she loaded her basket with rice, beans, and vegetables. That month, she could feed her family. Her smile said "thank you" in every language.

As my food pantry changes to meet the needs of its clients—offering fresh garden produce in the summer, keeping an eye on what local clients prefer and changing their staples to reflect this—I am changing as well. Now when I donate food, I think twice about what goes into my bag. Rice, cooking oil, chicken broth. Pasta and peanut butter. Canned beans. Tomato sauce. I remember Jesus' words in Matthew 25:35: "For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, …"

next page... |  2 of 3

share this page

April 2009, Vol. 53, No. 4