Food Bank

My daughter Sophie has been volunteering at a local food bank and she invited me to come along. Couldn’t hurt, I thought, as I have been dragging along in a mild indeterminate funk for several days and needed something to snap me out of it. Something to be enthusiastic about. A wake up call.

We drove out to a food bank in the eastern suburbs, to a nondescript office park in a less than desirable zip code. As we parked it began to rain, and never really let up for the next several hours. Inside though there was a relaxed friendliness, maybe eight or nine of us, and we got the tour and a general idea of the job at hand.

Of the many things in my own life that give me pleasure, one is a rainy day, the other food. All afternoon rain drummed on the warehouse roof, and food was everywhere. Frozen, fresh, canned, and dried, we began pushing carts through the bounty. One cart for a small family, another for a medium family, yet another for a larger brood. Then queuing them up according to family size and distribution times. Everyone pitched in, years in restaurant kitchens put me right in my element, and we all got pretty efficient pretty fast. 

Right on time, cars began pulling into the numbered spaces in the lot. Plastic ponchos were handed out, and food carts wheeled to the waiting cars in the rain. 

I’ve been pondering and making notes for a while on this great country of ours, the United States of America. Our grand experiment in democracy and equality. And the vast chasm between the rich and the poor. Between the fortunate and the less fortunate. It often seems insurmountable. 

But also capitalism. How perhaps such a profitable and efficient system can be fine tuned to do more for more people. Because if the only goal is making money regardless, and so many people get left behind, that doesn’t bode well for our future.  

A little less greed and a little more empathy seems like a start. And embracing that we’re all a lot more alike than different. Ultimately, all in the same boat, trying to succeed, to get by, to point our children to something better. Of course, some will read this from a yacht, others from a leaking jonboat.

I was impressed by the groceries supplied to the food bank. Kroger and Publix were contributing their leftovers, as were Target, Costco, and Starbucks. The fact that we’re an incredibly wasteful country is no secret. The fact that at least some of that potential waste was being distributed to those in need came as a welcome surprise. 

The people working that day were a mix. Again, of America. Like me, Mary was there with her daughter Anna, fulfilling school requirements. An older gentleman, Ray, seemed to know his way around, and when needed, directed traffic in a quiet but authoritative voice. After retiring as an IBM accountant, he explained to me, he had worked as a paid staffer at the same food bank. Then, when he retired from that, he continued to return twice a week as a volunteer. I’m always moved by people willing to share their time, that most precious commodity. 

Across the board, everyone seemed happy to be there. Humor flowed, the work got done, and respect and politeness ruled. 

The supervisor, JC, a nonstop multitasker the entire time, called us all together at the end of the shift. To thank us for being there, and to say we had moved seven tons of food that day. Five thousand meals. One family at a time. That’s a lot. More than I expected from ten Americans working together for a few hours on an April afternoon.  

As the last car pulled out of the lot with their groceries, the rain finally eased up, and Sophie and I drove out into the afternoon rush hour traffic. It being dinner time, and not really wanting the day with my daughter to end, I suggested we continue on, to an Italian place where I knew we’d share a good meal. That we were able to afford to do that was not lost on either of us.