Category: Army of Good

Let’s make this holiday real by supporting a Food Pantry in trouble and a grieving mother about to lose her medical care and home. What does it really mean to be an American on Labor Day?

Labor Day was created to celebrate labor unions, and America was the first country in the world to allow them to exist and rally workers. From the beginning, rich corporations have worked to curb these unions to boost their own profits.

This year, our Food Pantries have been assaulted by the same groups who enriched their profits by cutting food support for the needy and the hungry.

The holiday has lost its true meaning. I offer some real meaning today, beyond searching Amazon for bargains and picnicking. Some mourn the loss of compassion in America.

Here is yet another chance for the Army of Good and others to show the truth – we are a good-hearted people.

We are about so much more than money.

Today, on this blog, I offer the opportunity to do good for the holiday but mostly to do good, period.

I asked Sarah Harrington, the director of the Cambridge Food Pantry, to choose the two most urgent items of the day. She chose Creamy Peanut Butter and Contadina Tomato Sauce, two popular foods whose shelves are empty.

You can also find them through the Cambridge Pantry Wish List.

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Yesterday Maria chose to help a grieving mother who just lost her son and is in danger of losing the apartment she lives in. Maria asked me for help.

She knows Teresa to be kind and honest.

A sometime customer of Maria’s, she fell on hard times and reluctantly and desperately started a GoFundMe request for $3,000 to keep her home and pay some of her medical needs. She is ill and can’t afford her medicine or rent.

Maria and I posted the GoFundMe for Teresa Barzly last night and raised $2,000 overnight. This morning, on this holiday, we hope to raise the final $1,000 Teresa needs and seeks as she struggles to pay funeral costs for her 45-year-old son, pay her rent, and get the medicine she needs.

For me, this is a wonderful way to honor a holiday that has lost its meaning and to experience the joy of having a proud and brave woman with no place else to go.

This could be any of us.

America has its first trillionaire, but he’s putting his money into politics like many other billionnaires. Mostly, the billionnaires help themselves.

Please help give this holiday some meaning and Teresa Barzly her life back.

A small act of great kindness.

You can support Teresa Barzly’s home on her GoFundMe here.

You can learn more about her from Maria here.

I fully support the Food Pantry, Maria, and Teresa Barzly. Today, the holiday means something to me.

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Note: This morning, after Theresa Barzly’s GoFundMe passed the $2,500 mark, she posted this message on the fund’s message section:

“I want to thank everybody who is contributing to help me. I am sitting here crying at the generosity of people I don’t even know. I cannot believe people would help me when they don’t even know me. I thank you from the bottom of my heart. Thank you so much.” – Teresa Barzly.

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Thanks, Teresa. The Army of Good has been contributing to people they don’t know for some years now. They are generally grateful for the chance to help people in need. Good luck; I suspect you will get what you need shortly. – Jon

Good morning. This is the third Sunday Contemplation Morning for me. It has been valuable and important. I plan to do it next week and beyond. I’m not letting the toils of the outside world get into my head. This morning began with my pal Zip, sharing some time and love with me.

I take a few hours every Sunday to clear my head of all the tension and confusion and dishonesty and hatred bubbling all around me.

I hate the thought that I’m another ostrich hiding his head, even for one morning, but I also know if my consciousness is muddled by so much of the ugly junk and venom we are fed, I will be upset, angry, frightened, and confused.

So I’m clearing my head of distractions so I can feel clear, grounded, and able to do something worthwhile in life every day, and that means doing some good and being helpful. Zip always manages to be there, one way or the other.

It’s an old story, the rich screwing the poor. It always ends in the same way. The people always win. But it’s tough along the way.

This Contemplation began with my sitting outside with Maria, Zip, Zinnia, and Fate to clear and set a lovely tone. Bud was inside taking his morning nap.

Contemplation is intense and difficult. It’s also the most valuable thing I do. I am learning who I am and what I can do.

I’m not posting my regular Cambridge Pantry post, but I am listing the weekend aid request from Sarah. I had a powerful and wonderful time Yesterday volunteering during their Saturday food distribution.

Getting to see, get to know, and talk to the people we have been helping was a powerful experience. We are doing the right thing by helping these people.

So I’m off to my quiet place of silence, without any devices to distract or upset me. The next few months will be challenging; I want to be even, solid,  helpful, not nervous—that’s my goal. See you later. I plan on some flower photos; this may be the best way I can help people, myself, and Maria.

Below are three popular dinner items; please let me know if we can. I was deeply touched by the plot and pain I saw at the Pantry Yesterday. We are helping.

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This weekend’s Cambridge Food Pantry items request for Sunday, same as Yesterday (all are out):

Hamburger Helper Double Cheeseburger Macaroni Pasta Meal (Pack), $19.13.

Pasta Roni Shells & White Cheddar Mix (Pack of 12), $13.92.

Knorr Pasta Sides 12 Count Cheddar Broccoli, 7-minute prep, $13.56.

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Me at the Pantry helping people get to the cooler with a lot of good food. I want to do it many times again. It felt great.

It’s three items per person. Flower Art tonight, as usual.

We’re going away from Tuesday until Friday. Here are the things the Pantry needs. I’ll post them here and then again on the blog when we leave in the morning. Please keep them in mind while I’m gone (our postponed annual vacation). Hunger doesn’t take vacations:

The List:

Pizza Crust Mix (Pack of 6), $14.00.

Duncan Hines Brownie Mix (Pack of 5), $8-17-$8.60.

Scott Paper Towels, $6.84.(Urgent)

Brownie Yellow Cake Mix (Pack of 12), $17.64.

Betty Crocker Moist Chocolate Fudge Cake, (Pack of 24), $24.53.

Kraft Catalina Salad dressing, $2.98.

Thousand Island Salad Dressing, $2.29.

Duncan Hines Brownie Mix (Pack of 5), $8-17- $8.60.

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Thanks I know many of you share my unease about skipping our various ideas of good. Feel free to keep ordering these items if possible. I hope that nobody who comes to the Pantry notices I was gone. I’ll put these up again tomorrow.

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Zip always makes us smile. He loves following us, posing for us, but most of all, he loves to torment Zinnia, who is a great sport about it. Zap’s game is to hide behind something and wait for Zinnia to come rushing in looking for him.

At the right, Zip springs out and swats Vinnia (claws in). Zinnia is always shocked and shocked, then she gathers her wits about her, such as they are, and Zip will swat Zinnia in the nose and run off, visibly delighted. Even though she often loses, Zinnia loves the name and is never nasty about it.

We missed the brutal storm hitting New York City and the states South of us. But in a way, it was the coldest and most uncomfortable; it turned out to be an ice and cold storm, the rear legs of the blizzard still raging South.

There was a fierce wind this morning, some snow flurries, but the big storm gave us a path. Good luck to the millions of people who got globbered. For hours, a sheet of ice that was meant to be snow.

We’re not going anywhere today. I wouldn’t drive across the street in this weather.

I made it out to the back stairs and reated. There was a thin strip of ice everywhere  – some people call it a “falling storm.” I got a few photos that I hope capture the feel here, I retreated inside to my work there. My toes hurt, fingers too.

Today, we start preparing for our two-day vacation. The sun appears only tomorrow, and that will get us to our beautiful inn in Vermont, where we spent our honeymoon. I’m bringing two books, and hope to do little but sleep, eat and read, and talk with Maria. We love this time together without work or distractions.

We’ll be back on Friday, 10 crises then. iPhones off, our room has no screens.

We have a wonderful animal and farm sitter coming to be with the farm and the dogs. She used to care for elephants; I think she can handle us.

I’ll post 8-10 Pantry posts – hungry people don’t get vacations – after my morning posts. Feel free to buy your favorite and send it to the Food Pantry. They are badly needed. It feels good to do good. Every day.

This is so much better than searching for bargains from our country’s biggest stores, Walmart, and Amazon. I’d rather be grateful for my life than a prisoner of bargains on a holiday. Our true national religion seems to be money. There is no Black Friday here, just a bright one.

I’m doing one Thanksgiving a day. Maria was first. The Thanksgiving holiday wasn’t meant to be a massive sale for billionaires.

Sarah Harrington is not one of those people hunting for bargains. She is a warrior for good and empathy, and I have learned from working with her. What she does makes an enormous difference to thousands of people.

I’m happy to write today about my friend (and Boss), Sarah, who is the Executive Director of the Cambridge Food Pantry. She is the best Boss I’ve ever had and one of the best friends I’ve ever had. And I have a long and rich history of not getting along with bosses.

Sarah is one of those unspoken heroes. Pantry management is not an easy or glamorous job. She does it well.

I drove by the food Pantry almost every day for years, yet I never went inside. I had taken on other interests and causes, and no one had ever contacted me about it before.

Last year, my cell phone rang, and I don’t usually answer it if I don’t recognize the caller. Something told me to pick up this one, and my life was, in fact,  about to take a significant turn.

The call interested her and told me she was calling others to see if I might become an advocate for the Food Pantry. I didn’t have to think about it, I just said yes. It was one of my better instincts.

I’d never set foot in the food Pantry and had no idea how it worked. But I had just left the assisted care facility where I had volunteered for years, using my blog to help.

A hedge fund company had taken it over, and I had to leave. I was looking for something worthwhile to do and had learned a lot about Amazon Wish Lists and non-profit work.

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Some wonderful readers on my blog started helping, and we called one another The Army of Good.

It was one of the best decisions of my life.

Sarah and I rarely speak face-to-face, but we talk every morning, usually by cell phone or text at 5 am. It’s simple, really. She messages me with what the Pantry needs, and I write about it on my blog. My readers – the Army of Good – are people like me who want to do good and count on me to make good choices.

We’ve done a lot of good.

For me, this was an excellent opportunity to do something worthwhile with a blog that had tens of thousands of readers, especially as more and more Americans suffer from food deprivation.

Sarah is a remarkable administrator and an especially caring human being. Hardworking, sometimes gruff, always busy, and distracted by the intensity of a food Pantry, he impressed me from the beginning.

She is honest, hardworking, and gifted. She doesn’t treat poor and needy people like criminals or blame them for their troubles. People in need are often oppressed and often come in shame. There is none of that at this Pantry.

She has transformed the Pantry into a warm, bright, and welcoming place for people who have nowhere else to go. We are different people in some ways, but connect in the ways that matter.

I am touched by her attention to the “customers” as she calls them. They are treated with dignity, listened to carefully, and made to feel comfortable.

She is working hard to make the Pantry bright, clean, and cheerful, and she asks customers what they miss the most and asks my magical Army and me to help get them onto the shelves.

With Sarah’s direction, we have raised tens of thousands of pounds of food for the Pantry since Sarah made that call. It feels wonderful to see those boxes come in filled with food that will help fill the Pantry shelves.

There is so much anger and hatred swirling, it’s a gift to have that opportunity and be reminded that most people are good at heart.

Sarah and I have one of those relationships that rarely require much conversation, but when we do need to talk, she is right there, always putting the needs of the people in a food crisis first and thinking of them.

I can’t imagine how she can handle the scores of things required of food Pantry directors – Food Banks, donors, lights, coolers, packing, storing, unpacking, recording, ordering, counting storage, and most important of all, a steady flow of food for the people who have nowhere else to go.

From the first, I told her how critical it was for me to take pictures, especially of the volunteers, so the rest of us could relate to the hard work that they do. She got it instantly.

Billionaires are often credited with being generous philanthropists, but Sarah truly is one and has no chance of great wealth or public acclaim.

She has gathered a staff of people from the Pantry’s community and infused them with the values she has brought to the Pantry – dignity, courtesy, empathy, and care.

We try to give families what they need, and, if possible, what they miss and want. That’s where I come in. That’s where dignity matters.

I consider working with Sarah one of the best and most meaningful jobs of my working life. She has graced me with meaning and a way to use my work and my blog for good. (She is also an excellent writer who occasionally writes for my blog.)

I’ve learned a great deal from her – she is always available to answer my questions and teach me how a Pantry and the food system work.

Most people will never see just how important and conscientious she is in her work. But the people she serves have access to good, healthy food.

I see it and hear it every day, and I am grateful for her in my life. She is what America is about to me – people with big hearts who care for their neighbors.

I could not have slept tonight or felt peace if I hadn’t taken a few moments to thank the people in the Army of Good for their remarkable and instant response to the pleas of several new mothers at the food Pantry for assistance in getting diapers.

It is heartbreaking to be poor and to work so hard and never find peace or ease.

These mothers were about to give up buying food so they could afford diapers for their children, especially sizes 5 and 6. Overnight, the Army Of Good sent truckloads of diapers from Amazon warehouses.

I went to see them this afternoon to take some pictures.

As Sarah puts it, she is “stocked’,” and then some. She said the response was “awesome.”

I am running out of ways to thank you good people, all I can say again and again is thank you and bless you.

If there is a God, you’re going to a good place. If there isn’t one, many people appreciate what you have done.

Sarah is one, I am one, and the Cambridge Pantry mothers are some others. Thanks, thanks, thanks.

The world keeps spinning in the world of poverty and food deprivation. Nothing stays the same for long, and no need is temporal. For a few days at least – maybe two weeks – the pantry mothers will not have to worry about diapers because of you, small acts of great kindness so far-reaching that you might imagine.