I drove by the pantry for years and had no idea that unsung men, women, and children worked hard and for hours to make it work. I’ve resolved to photograph this work; these volunteers deserve acknowledgment and recognition, even if they never ask for it or even want it.
I’m going to correct that.
(This week, you can help. According to Sarah, the pantry’s director, the Children’s most wanted and needed food is Granola Bars. $12.14 buys 60 Bars and 30 pouches of Nature Valley’s Crunchy Granola Bars. That’s a lot of healthy food for a lot of children. They need the energy and calorie boost. Help if you can.) It’s on the Cambridge Food Pantry Amazon Wish List.)
Such kindness and humility are lost in much of our public life in America. Still, they live in rural communities everywhere and thrive in my tiny village of Cambridge, up by the Vermont border northeast of Albany. I’m proud to be a small part of it. To see their work is to be reminded of what our country’s heart is like a nation where citizens step in to help one another when the chips are down.
I go to the pantry at least twice a week now, once to help with the backpacks program and once to see the Regional Food Bank delivery come loaded with food. A dozen men and women work all day and into the night to catalog and list the food, unload it, unpack it, and distribute it to the shelves scattered throughout the building. People come every day to do different things.
It’ll be gone in a day or so. My mission is for people to see who is doing this desperately needed and difficult work.
They have been working together for years, know one another well, work silently and efficiently, and sometimes kid one another. Otherwise, they work. Some haul boxes, others stack shelves, others load freezers, and others break the boxes up.
They keep meticulous records so that the pantry can see what people need and are taking home.
They know what their jobs are, and it takes them a whole day to get the food ready to be picked up by the people they call customers – 417 people last Saturday alone, 173 backpack children.
The helpers are young and old,
(4th and 5th graders take the food backpacks to the local school every Friday, where the families in need can pick them up for the weekend while protecting their children’s privacy.)
Volunteers drive an hour or so to the Regional Food Bank to pick up the Cambridge Pantry’s allotment. Other volunteers are waiting for them, passing big boxes down the line to one another, making sure they each go where they are supposed to go, and keeping a meticulous record of what comes and goes.
Strong men and women carry the boxes into the pantry while others take them to storage rooms—freezers, refrigerators, and shelves for cans, boxes, and bottles.
I’m struck by how efficient the system is. These people have been working together for years. They ask for nothing, complain about nothing, and fan out through the building, knowing exactly where to put the donated food. It comes from the Regional bank, farmers, local grocery stores, and, recently, the Army of Goods. You all should see who the people behind the scenes are. Each shelf lists how many items can be taken.
A massive bag of potatoes came today. It’s going in the grocery section.
Lots of the food has to go into freezers and refrigerated rooms.
No one who comes from the family is treated hurriedly or disrespectfully. “We treat them all like family,” said one of the volunteers, “and some are.”
It is beautiful for me to go to the pantry on delivery day and see all the people working behind the scenes. I’m going to keep doing this every week.
I asked one of the volunteers why he was doing this. “When I die,” he said,”I want my family to say that I was kind and did good when I could.”
And please remember the children’s Granola bars. You can see them and order them here.
