Getting Involved : ‘Our Mission Is To Give Back Something’

Our family was Depression-poor when I was a child, but we never knew hunger. These days, millions of people do, relying on food banks like the West Valley Food Coalition’s Pantry, where I’ve volunteered the past four years. The Pantry is located in a Woodland Hills church’s spacious kitchen and, by luck, pluck and judicious management, we provide nutritious meals for about 3,000 children and adults each month.

We open at 10 a.m. and turn the bilingual “Open-Abierto” card for our clients waiting in the cold outside.

Pulling Mrs. Garcia’s card from our swelling cardboard files, I ask, “Is todo el mismo? “ Mrs. Garcia smiles at my awful high-school Spanish and says, yes, everything’s the same. Her husband still works at odd jobs, but more sporadically these days; their baby’s now almost a year old.

I fill plastic and paper bags with our government-surplus butter, turkey franks, frozen juice, macaroni and cheese, spaghetti, tuna, canned soups and vegetables, peanut butter and--thank goodness--today we have cereal. Best of all, there’s plenty of that “staff of life,” bread. Vons and Lucky markets have donated generously again.

Today, I find serendipitous extras like small bottles of shampoo, trial-size toothpaste, washing powder and diapers. Someone tells me Pampers now come in both pink and blue, tailored for each sex.

I notice more people coming in earlier, and our numbers have grown enormously. Many clients speak little or no English; some are here illegally, while others are chronically or temporarily unemployed. The women deserted by their husbands or single mothers really strive to keep it all together, and as the economy worsens, middle-class people with formerly good jobs are applying for food as well.

On this typical day, I work with a new applicant, an embarrassed, nicely dressed woman with her teen-age daughter. Next I help a handsome father of three, who describes his former job as “middle management.” An attractive American-African woman’s card notes her hard struggle with a modicum of public assistance. Unshaven and sleepless, a homeless man will get special small-portion items we stock. When he tells me he lives with his dog in a van, I find some dog food.

It’s amazing how well our all-volunteer group works. Once a year, we raise most of our funds through a luncheon-fashion show. The National Charity League contributes each month, as do many church members in the food coalition. We pay a flat rate of 17 cents a pound for a wide variety of items--when available--from the downtown Regional Food Banks, which make a free delivery on Fridays. Dedicated volunteers purchase other items we stock at a discount, hauling heavy bags and boxes into our storage areas.

We’re grateful for the Boy Scouts’ annual food drive and to members of Shir Chadash Temple, who donate tons of food during the Holy Days. Sometimes we depend on the kindness of strangers. As if prompted by a celestial clue, a Hindu gentleman appears mysteriously, bringing the food we need.

This has been a good day. A shy teen-ager gets a cake decorated with a hula dancer and palm trees on her birthday. The nursing mother is pleased to have iron-fortified formula and the extra candy and cookies have made life sweeter for a lot of folks.

We volunteers are mostly retired. Arms and backs tend to ache from the heavy work, especially when we haul five-pound sacks of flour or corn meal. Sometimes our tempers fray when clients prove demanding. People who’ve lived on the edge so long can be rude, disruptive, sometimes even threatening.

But we’re not here to discuss personalities or to be judgmental. Our mission is to serve--to give back something to a good society that’s striving mightily to remain that way.