Experiencing a Food Pantry, is it for me?

I stood on the uptown platform on Christmas Eve afternoon with two food-laden blue plastic bags waiting for the #1 train to arrive. Two women I recognized as being where I had just left, came toward me, heads bent and with bags hanging from each of their hands, their blue bags encased in upscale shopping bags, hiding the fact that they had just come from one of the city’s food pantries on the Upper West Side, where they were able to get raw packaged and canned food supplies to take home to their families. A thought flashed through my mind, in these days, what is it to be ashamed of if a person has to go to a food pantry for assistance and to augment their food stocks? It is necessary to get food where ever one can, with out too much hassle or cost.

This experience may seem mundane or ordinary to some, and to others, unusual, as it undoubtedly was for me. But when I considered the recent announcement by New York Governor David Patterson that he would make available $1 million to assist food pantries in the state, then the idea of going to a food pantry didn’t seem all together too much of a issue, except it would if I put pride before my stomach.

With economic constraints around the city hitting non-profit organizations, the governor’s announcement may be welcome news to those non-profit organizations with food pantries who have seen a significant drop in donations from individuals, other organizations and corporations; some may complain it’s not enough to provide for the burgeoning number of unemployed or under paid people seeking help with basic food, and some may not be able to accept it, because they no longer have pantries. But I wonder, with hundreds of food pantries in existence and many more organizations starting them as a social response, akin to the era of soup kitchens, but with less overhead and operational commitment; how much out of the $1million would any food pantry statewide receive to effectively stave off people clamoring for help and facing empty shelves? In this experience, I realized, that whether or not a person was employed, accessing the services of a food pantry is not restricted to the unemployed, but is equally available to those whose income makes it necessary for them to find other means of supplementing their food; putting pride or social status aside in the interest of obtaining food, especially if its free.

Rewinding to about an hour and a half before I stood on the uptown subway platform, at about 12:30 pm, I had followed a suggestion from one of my friends and headed downtown to the food pantry to see if I could get help with food. Taking the #1 train from my stop at 168^th Street, I disembarked from the downtown #1 train at the 86^th Street and Broadway stop, walked west to the corner of West End Avenue to the church of St. Paul and St. Andrew.

I walked resolutely through the misty rain, tiny drops of water falling from an overcast sky, remnants of ice and snow littered the sidewalk. I approached the wrought iron green-painted box like enclosure with steel steps leading down to a basement under the massive concrete structure of the church where a young Latina woman was closing the gate after escorting another woman out. When I enquired about the food pantry, she replied that the pantry was closed for lunch, from noon to 1:00pm and suggested that if I wanted pantry services, I could wait inside the church. A sign connected to the wire meshing detailed the pantry’s hours of operation, Monday to Friday, 8:30 am to 12:00, and 1:00pm to 3:00pm.

As I had no umbrella, and my only protection against the December cold and rain was a wool hat and a pea coat, I took the young lady’s advice and sought shelter in the church. When I entered the building through a side door, I felt as if I was suddenly transported to another place: inside the shadows seemed darker and deeper, and the silence noticeable. Where was anyone, I asked myself? Wandering around unhindered, I found myself in the church, proper; I had in fact entered into a vestibule cum office or reception area. The church seemed cavernous, its pews were aligned at a slight angle, not the traditional straight forward looking to the front set-up, but a semblance of a semi-circle, as if embracing the vacant sanctuary ahead. Above in the darker gloom of the church’s barrel vaulted ceiling, the occasional patches of white revealed where the darkened, sooth stained paint had peeled, and over the sanctuary was a large gray banner with black letters speaking to harmony existing between brothers and sisters. The yellow or gold stained glass windows that lined the walls, in three rows at differing heights, all bore similar generic patterns at each level, but which in themselves were devoid of character, except one, which showed a man kneeling before another who was seated throne like, and carried a plate below crediting the family who donated it to the church.

When the time arrived, I ventured out of the church’s warmth and protective gloom into the rain, and walked to the green painted steel steps, descended and through a door, entered into a vast hall. Pausing mid stride, I looked around, oriented myself, my senses attuned, observing, analyzing and processing this new experience. At a table in front of an opening which led to an office, a woman stood there as if guarding the objects on the table, which were a sheet that clients sign and a stack of clip boards with application forms with bank styled chain-attached pens affixed to the metallic clasp. I asked the woman, who struggled to speak and be understood in English, what to do as a first timer to the pantry. She pointed to a sheet of paper, said I had to sign in and then handed me an application on a clip board. The application itself asked questions which included, race, social security number, date of birth, income, employment status, and so on. I thought, the only thing missing from this application is a box to tick off that I was willing to provide a specimen for DNA and that with the social security number and date of birth, as well as name, address and phone number, I may as well be giving away my identity for the sake of food.

After I’d completed the application, writing on the social security line a bold N/A, not applicable, I waited for a short moment and was invited by another Latina woman to sit in a chair in front of a desk, where she proceeded to conduct an interview. Before she began, I was asked to sign my name on another sheet of paper, which she explained was to log the clients seen by a counselor. I never knew what was the purpose of signing my name on the first sheet of paper, perhaps that was also a log to count the number of people who had entered the pantry, and perhaps the two log signings was to see if there were any discrepancies, between the clients who had come to the pantry and those who had actually entered the pantry.

The counselor mentioned that the information on the application was not shared with anyone, but was used by the organization for statistical purposes, to determine the number of clients, and to assist with coordinating the food supply. What became apparent by the end of the interview, was that the counselor simply wanted to verify that the person sitting before her was the same person who filled out the application for assistance. Not once during the interview did she look at the form, but asked questions that were already asked and answered on the form, boxes ticked off and lines written on, such as what was my apartment number, my date of birth and if I had completed college and possessed a four-year degree. Then she asked if I had medical insurance and if not, would I be interested in a hospital offering low rates, at which suggestion I added that I didn’t want another bill. But thought to myself, who was she kidding? A low cost hospital in New York City? I wondered what this organization was getting in return for the hospital referrals.

When she was finished with the interview, she reached over to a side of her desk and selected a plastic badge holder with a blue sheet of paper on which was printed a shopping list, of sorts, where instead of prices, there were points alongside the items. As briefly as possible, the Latina counselor explained what little she knew of the pantry’s food points system, as in what form are the vegetables, canned or loose, and what quantity constitutes how many points, questions she couldn’t answer, but referred me to one of the attendants in the pantry, and told me that I was only able access the pantry’s services once a month. It also occurred to me that there were different color lists for families of different sizes; one woman had a yellow paper list, which allowed her to collect food for her and her family of three, and another had a green papered badge, which allowed her different food allotments.

The actual pantry was a study in independence. This was a pantry unlike others with which I was familiar, where you are handed a plastic shopping bag with food the distributing organization thinks you should have. Here, clients entered a large room containing metallic shelves laden with packaged and canned food, a loose vegetable area, and two large upright glass sliding door cooler, one containing dairy products and the other with various types of meat. On one side of the pantry were glass panels, where anyone in the pantry area could clearly be seen and monitored by the staff from the outside. Based on the plastic badge colored paper shopping list, a client selected what he or she wanted from the shelves.

Being a novice to this experience, one of the pantry’s attendants accompanied and assisted me in choosing items from the list that were on the shelves. When he saw I had understood the system, he left me to continue selecting, but hovered behind me to ensure I had really got the hang of the pantry. Because I was a single man, my shopping list was blue, only allowing food for one person. According to the list, I could only get three cans or three pounds vegetables worth three points; two one pint bags of rice and a box or oats, worth three points; dairy, meat, and fruit, one point each. I was allowed to have pasta, but on a shelf was a single box of spaghetti, which I reached for, but quickly retracted my hand. The box had been opened. The attendant assured me that it was okay, but when he saw my hesitation, he said I didn’t have to take it and that the staff would put the box of opened spaghetti in a plastic bag, tie the top, and place it back on the shelf where someone else would take it. I looked at him in horror, thanked him for his help and turned away.

While I was selecting food items from the shelves, I checked the ingredients of many of the canned foods for mono sodium glutamate, MSG, or other types of preservatives. I was determined to scrutinize each can to ensure that, not because I was getting free food, I had to have unhealthy food. I looked at one can of tomato sauce and noticed that there was a supermarket price label on it. It occurred to me that for many food pantries around the city, when they have reached below their established threshold level of food, donated, they actually go out and buy food from supermarkets to augment their stocks.

When I had completed my selections, I arrived at a long aluminum covered table where two women, dressed in aprons, performed a simulated supermarket check-out, except there was no cash register, moving conveyer belt or card scanner. The older woman who had given me the application at the beginning was there to check me out, looking through my blue bag to ensure that I had taken my blue shopping list allotment, nothing more or less. Noticing that I was new and unfamiliar to the pantry and since it was Christmas Eve, she offered me two additional cans of Campbell’s Tomato Soup and a box of assorted herbal teas. My foray into the world of food pantries and donated food complete, I left the pantry, climbed the green metal stairs to the street and headed across Broadway to the subway entrance and to wait for the train on the uptown platform.

Thanksgiving night, Dinner and Subway ride home thoughts

(New York, NY) My sister, who was visiting from Maryland, and my nephew, who lives in New York City, had invited me to accompany them to see the Christmas Spectacular at Radio City Hall, on the eve of Thanksgiving and after to his house in Rockaway Park, Queens, to cook Thanksgiving dinner.

Though hastily contrived, sometime betwixt the hours of late Thanksgiving eve’s mad and panicked dash to the supermarket, and early the next morning, my sister-in-law, my brother, my younger nephew and his most recent girlfriend, my sister and my older nephew came together to cook for a Thanksgiving dinner far exceeded any of our expectations. From the turkey, which was baked to a golden brown color, stuffing that was so rich my sister complained it was had a trifle too much salt and was too peppery, to the collard greens with ham hocks, candied yams, carrot and ginger soup, good ole Uncle Ben’s wild rice and my nephew’s indomitable mashed Idaho potatoes, the boiled corn, the warm spiced clove and cinnamon stick apple cider, and the apple pie with sugarless, but Splenda sweetened ice cream, all washed down with glasses of red or white, heavy in sulphites, Napa Valley wines, lots of conversation and a television stuck on CNN International where there were constant flashes and reminders of the carnage in Mumbai, a world away, all juxtaposed against a backdrop of reggae music, pulsating through speakers at my older nephew’s house.

At the end of this gastronomic gourmandizing, more food than any of us had had occasion to be near in the most recent past, we departed for our respective houses: my brother, sister-in-law, younger nephew and most recent girlfriend to their apartment, my sister staying with my older nephew to head to her house the next morning, my older nephew remaining in his house and retiring to bed, to sleep off the turkey, and I to my apartment.

I was dropped off at the subway station and after a short, but seemingly interminable wait on the platform, which was surprisingly populated, I boarded a local train to make a connection to an express train at the juncture of Utica and Fulton Streets in Brooklyn. When the A train arrived, Manhattan bound, odd assortments of people embarked and disembarked as the train made its express stops through neighborhoods, yet any given time, there were no more than 16 people sharing the car I occupied.

While sitting on one of the side facing seats, two young men came into the train, one at one of the lower stops in Brooklyn, just before heading through the tunnel under the East River to Manhattan, and the other at another station, also in the riverain bordering stations. Trying to read the latest issue of the New Yorker, I glanced up took notice of them both. One sat opposite me and the other, in one of the forward facing seats across from me. As the train barreled along its tracks the young man sitting facing me reached across to ask a question of the one in the forward facing seat. Not understanding what he was saying, the forward facing passenger looked in my direction and seeing that I was interrupted from my reading by this sudden and unusual activity: speaking to a stranger on the subway, he asked me in Spanish if I understood and spoke the language and to translate what the other young man was saying. Turning to him, I asked him of his problem and he explained that he had just been evicted from the apartment where he was staying and was asking the other young man if he could spare him a dollar to help him get to someplace. Translating the request, the Spanish-only speaking young man replied that he was “broke” and didn’t have money, the begging young man looking crestfallen and disappointed, leaned his head against the glass panel separating him from the doorway and closed his eyes.

Immediately, the thought occurred to me: I’ve written recently about lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) homeless youth, and shelters like the Ali Forney Center and the planned True Colors Residence to provide permanent housing, but what to tell a homeless LGBT young person if one encounters one who is in need of shelter. Conscious of the falling temperature outside, the coldness in the air, the realization that this was Thanksgiving night, I was stumped. I racked my mind for what and where to tell this young man of a place he could go that would at least provide him with shelter, perhaps a warm place, if only for the night.

The Spanish-only speaking young man asked me where he could get a connection to the Bronx, and as I told him where he could get trains, the D or No. 4, the other young man expressed that he too was heading to the Bronx. He said that he had just moved from Philadelphia to the city to take a job which didn’t work out, his girlfriend had just thrown him out of the apartment, and he was heading to the Bronx, to a family member, with whom he hoped he could stay, at least, for the night.

My mind racing while he told his tale, I could only come up with a suggestion that if his family were unable to accommodate him, he could try calling the city’s help line, 311, and to ask about temporary shelter. The question, however, haunted me: where and what does someone who is either lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender do or go if they suddenly found themselves without a place to live?

At Broadway/Nassau Street station, both young men disembarked the train and headed for the No. 4 train. Yet, throughout these dramas, I still was able to read my magazine, until the train arrived at my station stop much further uptown.

When I arrived home, I immediately called my older nephew and my brother, answered by my sister-in-law, to tell them I had arrived safely home. Briefly, with each, we marveled at how we were able to put together a full three-course Thanksgiving meal in a less then 24 hours, reminisced and acknowledged the feeling of family we experienced and shared, how special and reinforcing it was to all of us. As a true journalist, I found the hint of a story and plan on following it, not only to see where it leads, but to provide information for the wider community.