Us

If you get nothing else from this blog and whatever else is to come here, I hope you come away with an understand that people who use food pantries are not somehow "other."
I am going to get back to this point time and again, but today I want to focus on appearance.

I get the occasional opportunity to talk with groups of kids.  I love to ask them if they think the people who come to the pantry are any different than they are.  It's a fun exercise, because it's a trick question.  It really gets the kids thinking and talking.  Kids tend to be more honest about such things.

There are always at least a few who raise their hand to say that yes, people who use the pantry are definitely different than themselves.
I tell them they are right.
 I have the kids look around at each other and notice all the ways they are different. We talk about how their families are different, and how they like to eat different foods.  We are all different.  Having to use a food pantry is just one difference.
We are all different, and yet the same.

The answer is also that people who use the pantry are not very different form us at all.

Really, what some of these kids are getting at is that food pantry guest must be substantially different. That there is only different and no same.  That "they" are other, and not part of "us."

Often, kids will tell me that people who use a food pantry must have ragged clothes or be dirty or not have shoes..  In some food assistance programs, such as feeding programs for the homeless, this might be true.  I think we see these images in the media a lot, so this sticks with us.
If some of you are honest with yourselves, that might be the image you have of a typical pantry client.
I run a suburban pantry.  In terms of dress, appearance, and cleanliness, I see the same range at the pantry that I would see at the grocery store.  Because many we serve are working poor, people may be dressed nicely from work, or wearing a uniform, just like some of you do.  People may also look pretty ratty, but I have plenty of those days myself.


The other "difference" kids mention is skin color.  I have had a few groups where someone has said "People who use the pantry have dark skin."
The first time I heard that, I was saddened by what I perceived as deeply ingrained racial prejudices at such a young age.
Then I realized......our church had just hosted a Feed My Starving Children food packing event.  There had been posters and videos all over the place featuring dark skinned children from Africa and Haiti.
This led to a good teachable moment.  We had a great talk about the difference between suburban American food insecurity and Third World country hunger and starvation.
But I'm betting some of you have the "dark skin" misconception as well.  I am betting you are not thinking of the kids in Africa.
Well, guess what.  We do serve people with dark skin. And pale skin.  And everywhere in between.  With only one exception, the racial mix that we see in our pantry is very much like our community, which is pretty diverse.  (The biggest difference is that despite a high south Asian population in our area, we have never once served a south Asian family.  We have only rarely served Asian Americans.  I haven't done my research, but I suspect there are some deep cultural reasons for this.)  My guess is that if there is a pantry within a 10 mile radius of your home, the people who go there look a lot like your neighbors.


I need to switch gears here...

I wrote most of this post last night, put it aside to finish later and went to bed.

Today, I went into the pantry and found a number of bags donated by a small local church plant that meets in an area hotel.  I had talked with these folks, and knew they were working on this. They are good people with good intentions.
What shocked me was the note attached to the bags they had used to collect food:

"With the crime rater in Richmond on the rise we have been praying for the safety of your neighborhood.  In an effort to help those who might consider crime out of desperation we are doing a food drive."

While the intention was a good one, the assumption behind this message deeply saddens me.

This blog is young.  I don't have time in one post to tell you about all of my friends who come through the pantry.  Suffice it to say that the 70 year old widow trying to buy medication and struggling to pay for food, the single mom just trying to feed the kids, the educated but underemployed middle class man I know are not your crime problem.  Has anyone we serve ever committed a crime?  I expect so, in much the same way I suspect that in any group involving hundreds of people this could be the case.  I do not expect the crime rate among those we see is much different than the general population of the community they come from.

Listen, we need to keep talking about this.  Follow this blog.  Share it with your friends.  Start a conversation on your Facebook page.  Talk about it over the water cooler.

It's not "us" and "them."

It's just "us."

Let's work on changing the conversation.