This morning I walked over to the Columbia area to grab an apple strudel at the truly epic Hungarian Pastry Shop and visit Cathedral Community Cares. With time to kill, I found myself drawn to the massive Cathedral Church of Saint John the Divine. I am far from religious, but I impulsively entered the doors of the cathedral. As I walked inside, my jaw dropped. I was surrounded by shining stained glass panels, an assortment of archaic alters, and, of course, vast marble ceilings. It turns out that my randomly chosen cultural site was the largest cathedral in the Western hemisphere. What was more surprising, was the small and poorly-funded soup kitchen tucked into the basement recesses of the cathedral. I have taken enough English classes to know symbolism when I see it; I have never seen a more poignant contrast between the opulence of the wealthy and the deprivation of the poor who, quite literally, get shoved in the basement. Cathedral Community Cares is a small non-profit that is neither religious nor funded by the cathedral, but is located within the cathedral and answers to the cathedral board of directors. CCC currently operates a lunch and breakfast program each Sunday, which serves about 250 people, and a clothing program that is quite popular among those in need of work clothing. The majority of CCC's funding comes from the government and that funding has been cut significantly. CCC has dwindled from an eight to a three person staff and faces further cuts in the future. For now, it will remain a small organization doing its bit to decrease NYC hunger in the shadow of one of the most obvious testaments to wealth and extravagance in America.
Next, I traveled to Brooklyn to visit St. John's Bread and Life. Before I arrived in New York, I was incredibly nervous about spending my days alone in the city. However, I have felt remarkably at ease as I navigate the subway system, walk through neighborhoods, and spend time chatting with the often frightening-looking clients of the food banks. Yet, today my growing cockiness got shaken a bit. I know very little about New York City. Therefore, my idea of Brooklyn was brownstones and cafes. When I stepped off the subway in Bedford Stuyvesant, I found myself in an area that looked nothing like I had imagined. Here, there was graffiti, trash, and shabby apartment buildings. Walking through what I later found out is considered the poorest neighborhood in New York as a seventeen-year-old white girl in nice clothing, I felt uneasy for the first time since my project began. However, I made it to St. John's and past the tight security and found myself in the office of the executive director, Tony Butler. At most organizations with a twenty-seven member staff, the executive director does not have the time to sit down with a high school student. Yet, Tony gave me an hour and a half of his time to answer my questions, explain the programs, and tour me around the food bank.
St. John's inhabits a massive and beautifully renovated building. On the first floor, they have a soup kitchen that serves breakfast and lunch five days each week and roughly 250,000 meals each year. St. John's also has a mobile soup kitchen, which serves meals at five different locations throughout the city. The organization is best known for its revolutionary pantry program. Clients enter the building and head to a row of touchscreen computers to order the food they want that day. Between nine and eleven minutes later, a volunteer calls out their name with their personalized food bag. Not only does the system allow clients to choose what they want that day, it lets them choose how many points they wish to use that day. Clients can come as many times as they like each month, but they cannot spend more than their allotment of monthly points. Therefore, clients are given more freedom to determine when they would like to save or spend their points. This is the only digital choice pantry program in the world. When Tony and his staff first proposed the idea, many people thought the program would fail because they thought that the poor were too stupid to use technology. Instead, the program has thrived and continues to empower clients by giving them a place that respects them. Since this program was impemented, St. John's has seen an 85% increase in the number of clients, but only a 73% increase in the amount of food being given away. This means that clients know what the would like to eat and only take what they will eat, cutting out the excess food that is often a side effect of food pantries. The pantry and soup kitchen combined served 500,000 meals last year. 20% of their clientele is homeless, and 87% use St. John's for 180 days or less.
Upstairs, St. John's runs its social service component. In addition to a sizable social service staff that helps clients to apply for food stamps, etc., St. John's partners with a host of organizations that bring their services on site. At any given time in the week, St. John's will have an immigration law clinic, tax program, document recovery program, medical team (in their spiffy full-service medical room) and religious leader. These social service programs were utilized by 23,000 people last year. Additionally, the organization has a library, seven computers, and a small prayer room that are all available to clients five days each week. Taken together, these resources create an incredible hub of emergency assistance, long-term service, and personal development.
St. John's religious affiliation is somewhat confusing. It is officially affiliated with St. John's Catholic Church. However, it receives very little funding from them and does not foist a religious message on its clients. There are no religious posters on the walls or bible quotes on doorways. As Tony explained, the purpose of maintaining the religious message is to constantly reinforce the pure, moral message at the center of St. John's and all other similar non-profits: all people deserve to be treated with dignity and respect and have the same access to basic services. Whether you embody it in Christianity, Buddhism, atheism, or Hinduism, this is a beautiful message.
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