When I moved to Charlotte 37 years ago I joined a church that was “out in the country.” The membership was mostly farmers and I learned a lot of new expressions from them. One of my favorites was “A fat wife and a full barn never did a farmer harm.” I especially identify with that old saying now that we are in the process of gathering in the amazing abundance of food that has been donated in the last two weeks.
The Mecklenburg Council of the Boy Scouts of America has blown past any goal they might have set for themselves. Initial totals from this year’s Scouting for Food were over 255,000 pounds! That’s a 68% increase from their total of 175,000 pounds collected last year.
Hard working Scouts and a generous community have filled our warehouse with much needed food. Will it last forever? No, but for this winter it will remind our hungry neighbors that they are not forgotten.
I’ve seen this quote from Howard Thurmond a lot lately. After our yearly orgy of excess in December, too much activity, food, shopping, you fill in the blank, January is relevantly empty. Putting away Christmas decorations gives us a moment to appreciate simpler surroundings. The suddenly vacant spots on the calendar give us time to regroup mentally and physically. And yet, now is when Thurmond says the real work of Christmas occurs. We get back in our routines, we make resolutions to do better in the coming year.
I hope your resolutions for the New Year include some of the work of Christmas. The lost, the broken, and the hungry are with us year round. Not just when the weather is cold and bells are being rung in front of every store. Loaves & Fishes provides food for families in January, June and July, as well as between Thanksgiving and Christmas. We have learned to our sorrow that hunger never takes a holiday.
I have a good friend who looks after her grown sister who has mental retardation. These two sisters grew up poor – when we take up a collection for a family in distress through my church, my friend often says she knows what it feels like to be on the receiving end of charity. But neither of the sisters has had to worry about being poor for a long time.
My friend’s sister had a birthday last month and had the great joy to go shopping with $120 she had received in birthday cash. It was the week before Thanksgiving and she had seen the front page picture of a very empty Loaves & Fishes warehouse. Can you guess the rest? Yes, she spent the whole $120 on groceries to donate to Loaves & Fishes. And not just any groceries; all the things she remembered wanting when she was a young girl and times were tough for her family.
In the abundance of giving this season I can’t think of a more meaningful gift than this one – all her birthday money, and a generous heart. Isn’t that what Christmas is supposed to be about?
We never get through Thanksgiving week at Loaves & Fishes without someone quoting the classic television comedy WKRP In Cincinnati, “As God is my witness I thought turkeys could fly.” Well at Loaves & Fishes, they do fly. They fly into the pantries and out just as fast.
This is traditionally the busiest week of the year for us. Thanksgiving is all about a meal – no thanksgiving dinner – no Thanksgiving. So our pantries are flooded with needy families, our phones ring constantly with calls from folks either needing help, or wanting to help. It’s chaos, glorious and mind boggling, and probably not that different in feeling from the very first Thanksgiving. Will there be enough? How many people are coming? What will we do if we run short? Look at all the food people are willing to share!
With need up and resources down, we are especially “Thankful” for all who find time during their busy holidays to help Loaves & Fishes feed the hungry. Whether it’s a check, a frozen turkey or a few hours of time volunteered, we couldn’t do it without you.
These are exciting times for Loaves & Fishes as we have found some new ways to do old things. Our big fundraising event of the past few years “Feed the Need” has gone from a dinner/dance/auction in our warehouse to a multi-media appeal for support. This year, instead of attending an event, we are inviting you to enjoy your time however you want. But we still need your help. You can help us meet the growing need by making a donation through our website at http://www.loavesandfishes.org/feedtheneed-nonevent.htm or by calling us at (704)523-4333.
We are also excited to be the beneficiary of a brand new social media event called a “Tweelay.” This virtual race for charity’s goal is 10,000 tweets for $10,000 in 10,000 minutes. You will definitely be hearing more about this between now and the kick-off October 19th. In the meantime, visit http://www.embracecharlotte.org/countdown/ for more information.
On top of all this we are extending our reach to feed the need in the Mint Hill area with the opening of our 19th pantry at Wilson Grove Baptist Church. The new pantry opened last week and served 8 families on their first Saturday morning!
But the most exciting change for us is the introduction of a new model of serving the hungry called “Client Choice”. For the first time our clients will be able to enter a pantry and choose the food they take home. Several of our pantries have already started using the new model and volunteers and clients are equally excited about it. The responses of the clients say it all – “I know what vegetables my kids will eat.” “Thank you for giving me the dignity to make choices for my family.” “I am so thrilled to know we will be able to use everything Loaves & Fishes has provided.”
I have just marked my 23rd anniversary with Loaves & Fishes. I am sometimes asked “How do you stay in the same job for so long?” My answer has always been, “It’s not the same job it was 23 years ago.” And that has never been truer than today.
Opening the mail at Loaves & Fishes is always an adventure – you never know what you will discover – donations (expected and unexpected), bills (also expected and unexpected), letters of thanks from former clients, or maybe a postcard from a vacationing volunteer. The envelope looked like a thousand others. But a note fell out as I opened the mail last week. It read:
“We are giving $10.00 to Loaves & Fishes. We are struggling ourselves having to sell anything that means anything almost. It makes us feel good to give a little to you. Thank you. I hope things get better.”
A quick check of our records showed a couple who have been donating to Loaves & Fishes since 2003. The amount of this check told me that hard times have indeed come their way. I thought of all the reasons professional fund raisers tell us people make donations to charity; to promote causes we believe in, to better the situation of the poor, even for tax benefits. But I was struck by the sentence “It makes us feel good to give a little to you.”
I would be willing to bet that sentiment is beneath a lot of the giving to Loaves & Fishes. It just makes us feel good. Even, or maybe especially, when times are hard personally.
On a recent trip to the Midwest I had the opportunity to visit several food pantries in Illinois and Michigan. I had not looked forward to making the trip, travelling alone didn’t really appeal to me. But I came back excited and energized.
The large Loaves & Fishes in Naperville, IL, just outside Chicago, was new and shining – housed in a large building with lots of space to grow. It was refreshing to talk with folks who are just starting down the path we at Loaves & Fishes in Charlotte have been on for 36 years.
The Kalamazoo, MI Loaves & Fishes felt so much like home – a network of 26 food pantries started and sustained by the faith community, and operated by hundreds of volunteers with a very small paid staff. I enjoyed visiting several of their pantries, meeting dedicated volunteers who take great pride in their work, and chatting with clients as they picked up their food.
I am excited about putting some of the “best practices” I observed into action here in Charlotte. And also about the many ways these other organizations gained ideas and enthusiasm for using some of our operation procedures to their benefit. Although pantry programs have no national organization to connect us, it is always a thrill to see a “Loaves & Fishes” sign in another city. And a reminder of how much we have in common with people all over this great country.
Posted in Loaves and Fishes
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Tagged best practices, feed, feeding the hungry, food bank, food pantry, hunger, hungry, Kalamazoo, Loaves & Fishes, Naperville, pantry programs, volunteer
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I often tell people that Thanksgiving is the biggest holiday of all for Loaves & Fishes because it is all about sharing a big meal. But having celebrated Easter last month with family and friends I realize what an important part food again plays. It is my great joy to look down the length of the dining room table and see lots of familiar faces. This year we only had eight for dinner so it was a small crowd. But what pleasure it gave me to prepare for those eight. Simple food, nothing gourmet – roasted chicken, potatoes, biscuits, deviled eggs, asparagus – the same menu was probably presented on thousands of tables.
The joy came in the sharing, and in the teaching. My seven-year-old granddaughter enjoys learning new cooking skills for holidays. This year brought her first experience of making Rice Krispie Treats; molded into muffin pans to make bird’s nest, covered with green tinted coconut and a few candy eggs. Each guest had their own individual treat courtesy of Raven.
I couldn’t help but remember the two little girls I met at a pantry just before Thanksgiving a couple of years ago. They were picking up groceries with their mother and baby sister. They were so thrilled to find two boxes of Rice Krispie cereal in the groceries they received from Loaves & Fishes. When I asked them why – well, one was to eat and one to make Rice Krispie Treats, a rare treat for the girls, for Christmas.
So my Easter prayer of thanksgiving this year included all the little girls making Rice Krispie treats with their families, whether their groceries came from the supermarket or Loaves & Fishes. On Easter Sunday you couldn’t tell the difference.
Posted in Our Stories
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Tagged Charlotte, Easter, food, food pantry, groceries, hunger, hungry, joy, Loaves & Fishes, poverty, Rice Krispie Treats, thanks, Thanksgiving
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The news lately has been big – Royal Weddings, Osama bin Laden’s death, tornadoes and more tornadoes; exciting and scary stuff. It’s easy to get caught up in big events. I had great fun at a Royal Wedding party last week – arriving at 4:45 a.m. to find the hostess in her pajamas and a hat serving scones, jam & cream and champagne! Other big news has not been as festive, but death and destruction have their rightful place on the front page.
At Loaves & Fishes we specialize in little news. I’d love to see a headline in the Charlotte Observer proclaiming the end of local hunger. No more children going to school without breakfast, no families suffering food insecurity, and no need for soup kitchens or pantries. But that is not likely to happen in our lifetimes.
What does happen day in and day out is the joint efforts of thousands of people – volunteers and donors who make little headlines in the lives of ordinary people. In three months Loaves & Fishes has provided a week’s worth of food to 23,712 people. Wholesome, nutritious food – to keep folks not just satisfied but healthy. Hot cereal on cold mornings, bowls of soup and grilled cheese sandwiches for lunch and hearty suppers. Won’t make the front page, but makes a world of difference to 23,712 local folks.
You never, ever know what the next phone call will bring to Loaves & Fishes. Yesterday morning Bill, one of our long-term volunteer pantry coordinators, called the office with a unique problem. He said a woman had come into the pantry wanting to donate fresh eggs. Not a daily occurrence, but not that unusual. But she had arrived in a pick-up truck full of live chickens! Bill wanted me to tell him what to do! Well, after a few moments of fumbling around, I said, “Bill, I think you must tell her that we just can’t accept donations of live poultry.” I suspected that I was the target of an April Fool’s prank, a few days late. And sure enough, staff members had put Bill up to the fictitious phone call. I have a (well-deserved) reputation as a prank caller myself. I occasionally call the office with donations of interesting and unusual food – 40,000 pounds of ripe apricots, fresh road-kill, etc. – just to see how the staff will react. So it was payback time.
However, last week we received a donation of 29,000 pounds of chicken that was anything but a prank. Tyson Foods brought 16 pallets of chicken to our warehouse on Wednesday morning. We knew the donation was coming, but didn’t know the specifics. When we unloaded it and open the first box we were overjoyed to find skinless, boneless chicken breasts, packaged three to a tray! It is a perfect donation – solid protein, packaged exactly right for an average family, and looking like it had just been purchased at the neighborhood grocery store. I couldn’t have been more excited if the cases were full of gold – and in a way they were. Golden chicken to make wholesome and healthy meals for more than 45,000 hungry folks!
You just never know what the next phone call will bring to Loaves & Fishes.
