Homegrown Happy Valley

“Thank you, it was delicious.”

The compliment was uttered not in a restaurant, but in a South Jersey soup kitchen, which on this particular day was serving split pea soup, spaghetti and sausage, and string beans.

I was lucky enough to work the line last week. I use the word “lucky,” because my mom, a South Jersey resident, had been showing up at the kitchen for a few weeks looking for a way to help out. She bagged a few rolls here, boxed a few meals there, but mostly she and her friends just stood around waiting for a job, which at one point included guarding the bread station (a vital, if boring, task).

My mom and her friends kept showing up and, on the day I tagged along, the folks in charge asked them to work the line. My mom manned the soup station and I stood in front of the string bean tray. As our diners–men and women, elderly, twentysomethings with special needs, veterans–came through the line, we smiled and searched out their eyes even when they were too embarrassed to look up. When their hands proved shaky, we carried their bowls. And when they carried their Tupperware containers back to the line for seconds, we apologized profusely for running out.

My mother impressed me. Soup kitchens, it turns out, can be as exclusive as sororities. Newcomers are judged harshly among the regular workers, who are familiar with the rhythm of the operation and weary of those who might disturb it. But my mom thrust herself into the middle of the system and kept on working even when criticized. (I thought she dished out soup like a pro, but the establishment thought otherwise. “Keep the soup from hitting the edges of the bowl next time,” one scolded.)

Now that I’m home, I wonder how we can help in our own backyard. Most community-minded folks would love to volunteer, but the demands of our own lives come first. My suggestion: Every time you hit your grocery store, pick out a few items for the food bank. Donations to local food pantries always decline after the holiday season, when our instinct to help is always the strongest. But people on food stamps are still hungry the other ten months of the year.

And they enjoy fresh fruit and vegetables just like the rest of us. Yet the pears and carrots that we take for granted are harder to find at our food banks and soup kitchens. You wouldn’t believe the amount of sugary carbs that filled the shelves of this particular South Jersey soup kitchen. Cupcakes, brownies, cookies, apple strudel, you name it. Yet there was only one measly crate of apples, which had to be tossed because they were bruised. “Where’s the fresh fruit and vegetables?” I asked my mom. She related my question to the manager, who said their number one providers-grocery stores-just don’t donate them.

My mom and her friends are collecting $5 from each person attending their monthly book club, which they’ll use to buy apples for the soup kitchen. I’m asking my own book club to do the same-let’s overload our food bank with apples.

Let us know if you start your own apple drive. My mother would be proud.

This entry was posted on Friday, January 29th, 2010 at 3:48 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.