I am in awe of the Sahuarita Food Bank: the organization, the volunteers, and the spirit surrounding all of it.
The food bank is officially open from 3 – 5 on Thursdays (10 – 12 on Saturdays) but we started serving clients at 2:30 and didn’t finish until after 5:30. I was assigned to shadow a Shopper (who eventually approved me to assist clients on my own), the volunteers who guide people through the tables stacked with loaves of bread, produce, boxes and cans. So my job was to be friendly, supportive and push a grocery cart. I didn’t crash into anybody’s ankles.
Clients started arriving more than an hour before the pantry was scheduled to open, and were given numbers when they arrived (not just reminiscent of deli numbers in this case, but the exact same type of roll). As quickly as possible they were entered into the food bank’s computer system and given a laminated card detailing what they were eligible for. It was orderly and compassionate. But still people waited for hours. And so as the afternoon wore on, by the time they were at the front of the line to shop with me, they were often frustrated and tired (and probably hungry).
But this food bank has a statewide reputation for friendliness. I heard that from the new director before the pantry opened on Thursday (he’d just come from a meeting in Phoenix) and, anecdotally, from the clients who shared stories of other pantries.
I pushed each client’s cart along tables set up in the church hall at Good Shepherd. On the other side of the table were the volunteers who stocked and handed out the food. They didn’t just pass food over but asked what people liked, and made gentle suggestions. Even when we were running low on selection – and, after 5 pm, on basic supplies – those volunteers kept smiling and finding staples and specialties to fill a
family’s cart. Again and again I’d see a volunteer stash an extra can or cucumber in a bag.
It was clear that many of the volunteers and clients knew each other, that this was a regular meeting (not to mention the clients who were also volunteers). There were hugs and shouted greetings, bad jokes flying around, and family members asked after. Others were finding their way through the food pantry for the first time. I'm guessing some were the border patrol agents and government workers we'd heard were looking for food. These folks were welcomed as new friends, graciously guided through the wilderness of the process.
And so, again and again, as a client made their circuit around the pantry, I saw the tension start to fade just a bit, the shoulders relax, the brows as well. I think of one man in particular, gathering supplies for his family of seven, leaning heavily on a cane due to a hip injury, carefully choosing food his family would eat and leaving behind anything he feared would go to waste. He was pretty grumpy when I took his laminated card at the beginning, and I quieted down my usual chirping. But by the end he was smiling and laughing, joking at my “superhero strength” as I loaded heavy boxes in his car.
It’s funny, we didn’t eat a thing during those hours together, clients and volunteers. We were surrounded by food, piled high, but none of it passed our mouths. We talked about food – the woman who chose the can of garbanzo beans to add to salads, the mother who looked for chicken noodle soup for her sick child. But we didn’t eat any of it. And yet there was absolutely that community-building feeling you get from sharing a meal together.
You know how it is, you start out as strangers. Sometimes you’re strangers because you really don’t know each other, but even close family and friends who have spent a day or week or month apart are strangers of a sort. As you break the bread and pass the salad and ask where your companion is from or hear about your child’s day, the strangeness between you dissipates. As hunger is temporarily tamed and nutrients flow through your system, you feel more connected to those beside you. Even if you never see each other again, you have touched each other’s lives during that one meal, and become part of each other in some way.
And so my one afternoon at Sahuarita Food Bank was a feast.
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