On Saturday, Brian and I were tasked with the difficult task
of grocery shopping to please our fellow travel group with a balanced, nutritious
foods (as recommended by the U.S. government) for Sunday’s breakfast and lunch.
The catch, we had $4.50 from each person to simulate the average amount a
person receives through food stamps daily. Brian and I worked diligently to
find portions sizes and recommended servings per day of each food group to meet
the government’s advised balanced plate. I consider myself a people-pleaser, so
after creating a list of groceries, we thought met both nutrition and price
point, we allowed the whole group to tell s what they liked and what they
didn’t on the future menu. Come Sunday, when grocery shopping was all said and
done, both breakfast and lunch were a hit—with everyone feeling full and even
leaving some food leftover! With a group of fourteen of us, it was pretty easy
to get feedback about the foods everyone wanted and were in need of
nutritionally-speaking. However, the first site visit I went to four service
learning project showed me just how more inefficient the food distribution
system is for the organizations serving those struggling in poverty.
Jan Hus, a
church my team visited as our first site visit on Monday, does a load of
different services for those experiencing homelessness including a meal service,
a clothing closet, street outreach, and a food pantry. My first task, as I was
led down the staircase by our point-person from the church, Jordan, was to help
down in the food pantry with shipments. Little did Jordan know, as my partner
Sam and I were walking in to start our job, we would be learning so much more
than by just doing.
A
78-year-old man and a member of the church named Hank let Sam and I in on some
news, “Well,” started Hank, “it doesn’t look like we got any shipments in
today.” As we walked into the small food pantry, he led us into a corner and
leaned on a shelving unit filled with many different types of food. The food
pantry was much smaller than I was used to, even smaller than the one I worked
in in my rural Iowan hometown. I asked Hank how many people were served at
their facility. He said there were 2,500-3,000 people they assisted through the
food pantry and the meal service (an equivalent to half the population in my
hometown).
Because the
nature of our task was no longer needed based on the lack of a shipment to
unpack, Hank took the time to tell us about his experience both in life and
about his work at the church. Hank mentioned he was once a veteran and later on
became a county judge, but at some point started struggling with an addiction
to cocaine which landed him in prison a couple times. After his incarceration,
he could no longer find work and soon found himself in the midst of homelessness.
Now that he ran the food pantry, he knew the food distribution system and the
problems within it.
What I
gained most from Hank (because I learned a lot) was the lack of communication
between the church and the organizations who donated food to the pantry. “You
see these juice boxes,” Hank said as he acknowledged the odd assortment of food
to be given to those living on the streets, “these are not nearly big enough.”
Regarding the quantity of boxes he’d have to give one of their clientele to
meet their needs and nutrition. He also mentioned that they receive gallons
upon gallons of canned peaches and spinach, yet the food bank never gave them
sliced bread.
Looking at
both struggles Hank had in homelessness and running operations for the church’s
food pantry, I realized that the resources trying to help by donating food were
not running it nearly effectively as they could be. Regarding the grocery
shopping experience and how successful Brian and I were at meeting the needs of
our team, I wondered why the services filling the food pantries, especially
through tax payer dollars, were not succeeding. First, Hank and I both
mentioned communication barriers a few times—mainly that those who give do not
ask the needs of those they are giving to—they just give. Which, while well
intentioned, just produces a lot of wasted or unutilized items. Second, the people
who give do not have enough knowledge about those the service organization is
serving. In the case of Jan Hus, there were many canned goods that just sit on
their shelves for months because many of their clientele do not have access to
a can opener. Finally, Hank and I had a light conversation over politics, and
while I may not have agreed with many of his views, we both agreed on this: the
divisiveness between political parties, race, gender, etcetera has not
helped—especially in the case of churches and other private bodies. Hank mentioned
five other local churches who hosted weekly meals and clothing closets, but
NONE of them worked together. When Abraham Lincoln said, “A house divided
against itself cannot stand,” I had no clue his words would ever ring true to
churches and for other services trying to meet the needs of those who are
homeless. Maybe Brian and I got it right in our grocery shopping strategy for
our group of fourteen people, but much more will have to be done to fix these
roadblocks for Jan Hus church.
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