Thursday, April 7, 2011

Yorkville Common Pantry/West Side Campaign Against Hunger

         This morning I returned to YCP to speak with two women on the development team who are in charge of raising the roughly $3.6 million dollars each year that keeps YCP alive.  Raising money on that large of a scale, with so many programs, jobs, and hungry people depending on your efforts, is incredibly daunting.  When I envisioned visiting these food banks, I never imagined meeting with the fund-raising staff.  However, I have increasingly come to realize how incredibly important the small staffs that run events, reach out to donors, build corporate partnerships, and harness publicity really are.  No organization would exist without them.  YCP is unique in the New York area because it receives very little government funding.  Instead, 73% of funding comes from private sources.  YCP's location on 5th Avenue and the very name, Yorkville (one of the richest zipcodes in the country) throw into relief a curious contrast that is found in all hunger, homelessness, and other emergency assistance organizations: these organizations are often the only bridge between the very rich and the very poor.  On any given day, staff, like the good folks at YCP, must cater to New York socialites with seven homes and impoverished families with none.  For me, this is a really interesting aspect that I have never before considered, even though, in working with the Hunger Coalition, I frequently and unthinkingly switch between donor services and clients services. 
        Another thing I found interesting about YCP is its unintended permanence.  When YCP was founded thirty years ago, the nineteen churches and synagogues that created it never intended for the organization to exist longer than five or ten years.  They thought that hunger in NYC would be solved by then.  Thirty years later, hunger is just as big, if not larger, of an issue in NYC and across the nation.  It is really hard to comprehend that America, the most powerful nation on Earth, has a problem obtaining the most basic of human necessities for all of its inhabitants.  And the problem is not going to go away any time soon.  On that note, here is an interesting article I found via the New York Times today: http://shareable.net/blog/how-i-learned-to-stop-worrying-and-love-the-dumpster
         Next, I headed downstairs to observe YCP's food pantry.  As I mentioned in my previous post, YCP is in the process of switching over from a food packet system to a food ordering system.  I think this will be a good switch.  I couldn't help but watch the food packet system and cringe at the number of plastic bags going to waste.  Each client gets a dry goods packet in a plastic bag and a produce/meat packet in a plastic bag.  I also worry that, because clients cannot choose what they receive, some of the food gets thrown away unused.  Other than these two things, the food pantry was remarkably ordered and well-run.  I really like YCP's system of allotting time slots for different family sizes.  For example, all one to two person families come to the pantry from 10:00-11:30 and then the three to five person families come for the next slot, and so on.  YCP also has a great organization system for crowd management.  All clients start in the basement, where their membership cards are scanned.  When the card is scanned, their name shows up on a monitor in the pantry.  They wait downstairs until the pantry is ready for them, and then head up the elevator to receive their packages.  This keeps the relatively small pantry space organized and chaos-free. 
          Around 11:00, I ventured into the subways and promptly got thoroughly lost.  After forty-five minutes of back-tracking, I arrived at West Side Campaign Against Hunger.  I appeared a few minutes into WSCAH's lunch hour and was immediately greeted by the executive director, Doreen.  Each day, the twenty clients who are working in WSCAH's 12-week restaurant program serve lunch for staff, volunteers, and guests.  Today, they were celebrating three birthdays within the community, so everyone ate cake and sang.  A sizable portion of WSCAH's volunteer base is also their client base.  As Doreen explained, WSCAH is a customer cooperative, which means that they foster an atmosphere where every client feels personally involved in the well-being of the organization.  This atmosphere is most palpable at lunch time, when clients, staff, and others mingle and get to know each other.  As a result, I have never seen such a friendly and tension-free food bank.  Additionally, the meals that are prepared are predominantly made out of the pantry and are intended to demonstrate the healthy meals that can be made from WSCAH's resources. 
          The lunch break is not Doreen's only innovation; she also invented the supermarket-style system that has been copied by hunger organizations across the country.  In fact, I already described this system in my post about the University Food Bank because Joe at University Food was directly inspired by Doreen's model.  WSCAH serves about 212 households each day and roughly 27,000 people each year.  Essentially, clients (or customers) enter the pantry, grab a shopping cart, and head through the shelves to choose what types and quantities of food they would like to eat.  The quantity they are allotted is not large: it is enough food for about three days but clients are only allowed to come once per month.  However, the quality of the food is very high and Doreen focuses intently on ensuring that everything on the shelves is healthy.  I met a sweet older volunteer who works nearly every day at the pantry.  She is dedicated to making the bank as inviting as possible and has put herself in charge of educating all volunteers on the importance of keeping all of the products on the shelves tidy, easy to access, and facing forward.
          Like YCP, WSCAH has a six-person social services team that helps clients gain access to entitlements like food stamps and social security.  This team also partners with a number of other organizations that come to the pantry to assist clients with services like legal advice, HIV testing, financial help, and health enrollment.  Doreen estimates that 90% of clients would rather come to WSCAH to receive these services than another agency.  Thus, WSCAH has evolved into a sort of hub for organizations with services that typically benefit the hungry. 
          Doreen, like myself, shares a love for pie charts and data.  WSCAH has done extensive surveying of their clientele and she was able to present me with some impressive statistics.  A few that surprised and sobered me: 59% of WSCAH's clients have a weekly income of $0-200, 30% do not have adequate housing, 37% came once, while 27% came back after a six-month absence, and 11%, or 1,090, people came 10-12 times last year, or nearly ever change the could.  Doreen has also found that government programs are largely ineffective in helping support the hungry and homeless.  The two programs that are most beneficial are food stamps and an earned income tax credit.  Unfortunately, some members of Congress are trying to cut these programs and essentially end all efficient government programs.  For WSCAH, cuts in government funding could have serious consequences.  WSCAH is about 25% government funded, with a total government revenue of $600,000 dollars each year out of their overall budget of $2.4 million dollars.  It is possible WSCAH will lose a large chunk of government money, which may mean programs will need to be cut and the amazing system Doreen and other staff members have put in place will be fractured. 
            Final thought of the night: (it is 1:15 my time)  today I had quite a view-changing experience out of the food bank.  This evening, around 5:30, I was returning to my apartment after a long day of touring food banks and exploring New York.  I was tired, hungry, and ready to get home.  On the way, I stopped at a neighborhood grocery store to buy a few items.  The store was somewhat busy as I got in-line behind a very old, stooped woman.  She had yellowed fingernails, stained clothing, the distinct smell of homelessness, and spoke very little English.  I barely noticed her.  After a lengthy wait time, I began to grow impatient and I started to tap my foot and cast annoyed glances in her direction.  The line behind me grew.  She continued deliberating between items and trying to communicate with the cashier.  And that's when I noticed the payment type on the register: food stamps.  My heart sank.  I watched as she put a few items back and then sadly pulled out a few crumpled dollar bills to cover the extra excess cost of her minimal groceries.  And then she was gone, hobbling off into the streets of New York.  In the instant I saw the words "food stamps" appear on the register, my perspective of this woman changed; I transformed from an impatient customer to someone who compassionately understood the woman's situation.  However, I should never have had to transform in the first place.  All the clues--from the smell to the her stained dress--should have instantly triggered my compassion and understanding.  Yet, those emotions didn't even register.  Instead, I was borderline rude.  Thus, I have added a new goal to this project: I am going to consciously work to integrate the caring and empathetic aspect of myself that emerges when I work with clients in food banks, learn about programs that serve them, and advocate for their causes, with my seventeen-year-old aspect that just wants to buy bread and get home.  I want to connect my philosophies with my actions and learn to notice the small signs of distress and instability far outside the walls of hunger centers.  But, for now, all I can do is sleep and begin again in the morning.  Tomorrow I am working with Cathedral Community Food Bank and St. John's Bread and Life.

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