Food Co-Op Grows Out of Distress Over Hunger

London Glass shops for food the way most people shop for apartments. She is on the phone first thing in the morning, wheeling and dealing for lamb chops, English muffins and turkey legs--dialing down the list until she strikes gold.

It’s a full-time job, but when you are feeding a family of thousands, it’s the only way.

Once a month, the fruits of Glass’ labor pay off for participants in SHARE, a food distribution organization that has evolved from a tailgate business to an international operation helping feed the hungry.

SHARE, the Self-Help and Resource Exchange, was born in San Diego 3 1/2 years ago, the brainchild of Father Carl Shelton, a former executive who sold his Mercedes and contracting business and dropped out of the rat race.

“There came a time in my career when I started asking myself, ‘If I increase my income 100%, will I be a success?’ ” he recalls, sitting in his office at SHARE’s modest headquarters across the road from the county animal shelter.

Visited Mother Teresa

So began Shelton’s venture into the ordained ministry of the Roman Catholic Church, which took him to Calcutta, India, with Nobel Peace laureate Mother Teresa and finally back to San Diego to establish SHARE.

“From my Mercedes, everything looked fine,” Shelton says. “I’d never seen hunger in the United States until after I went to Calcutta with Mother Teresa. I’d planned on working with the destitute and she told me to come back here.”

Gretchen Gill and her husband, Clifford, have been involved in SHARE for three years.

Three days before a recent distribution day, she sat at a long table in the SHARE warehouse stretching mesh bags that would be used to hold fruits and vegetables.

“It’s tedious, but it’s getting the work done,” said Gill, who became a volunteer after discovering that the idleness of retirement was damaging her both mentally and physically.

“I was newly retired after 30 years of work, and after the doctor told me to get out and do some volunteer work, my husband found this. Now my psychiatrist refers all his patients here.”

Participants in the SHARE program pay $12 each month and work two hours in return for a food package worth roughly $36.

The food comes directly from growers and merchandisers across the country. The shopping list for SHARE nationwide is put together each month by SHARE’s San Diego purchasing department and Glass phones around to find the best prices.

Not Quite Top Quality

“We get all kinds of food that for some reason wouldn’t otherwise make it into households, that for some reason hasn’t passed a company’s quality control standards,” explains Executive Director Paulette Hardin. “For example, tomato sauce that’s been cooked a couple of minutes longer than company standards. What are they going to do with it? They’re going to sell it to us. There’s absolutely nothing wrong with it. I feed it to my kids.”

In the United States, SHARE distributes in New York; Newark, N.J.; Chicago; St. Paul, Minn.; Milwaukee and New River Valley, Va.

It also distributes federal dairy surplus products in Mexico and plans distribution soon in Guatemala.

SHARE accepts cash or food stamps, which satisfies Shelton’s desire to have a co-op open to everyone, rich or poor.

During a typical month, Hardin says about 14,000 San Diego families get help from SHARE, and Shelton estimated that the number nationwide will reach 100,000 by year’s end. In November, the monthly numbers in San Diego increased to about 20,000 a month because of the holidays.

According to Shelton, the typical SHARE participant is someone who is willing to work and is looking for an opportunity to be useful.

The first SHARE distribution was in May, 1983, out of the backs of trucks set up wagon-train style in the parking lot of San Diego’s Jack Murphy Stadium. Not long afterward, SHARE moved into its permanent warehouse, complete with freezers and loading docks and offices.

Rather than take orders from individuals, SHARE works with host organizations, usually churches or neighborhood groups who collect the participants’ money. These organizations submit orders to SHARE and arrive on distribution day to collect their allotment for eventual distribution to individuals.

“This has two advantages,” Hardin says. “First, it enables SHARE to distribute to thousands of families without their having to stand in a long line. And second, it puts people more in touch with each other in their community, which is one of SHARE’s goals.”

On a typical distribution day, Hardin had been at SHARE since dawn preparing. Throughout the day vehicles ranging from shiny Blazers to tired old trucks rolled up to the loading docks with orders.

Volunteers went from station to station, loading carrots, oranges, potatoes, breads and frozen foods on dollies and doling them out to representatives from host organizations.

Little has changed about SHARE in 3 1/2 years. The price per package went up $1, but the goal is to keep the price at $12 while remaining independent of government help.

“For one thing, this means we don’t have to worry about federal cutbacks,” Hardin said. “But more important, what we know about people is that they’re not looking for charity. Given an opportunity to take the resources they have--their time and money--and translate that into more food on their table, they’ll take the opportunity time and time again over a handout.”

Shelton acknowledges that the federal food stamp program is a necessity, but he was looking for a way to help the hungry that would lead to self-sufficiency.