Being Food Insecure in the Pandemic

It is raining. And I’m in my car that I don’t know how I’m gonna pay for, but that’s further off. They don’t repossess cars for months. An average human being can go for three weeks without eating.

I know going hungry will solve nothing for anyone. It is scary. I am viciously triaging my needs, as we all are to one extent or another now. It isn’t yet clear if or when a shelter-in-place order will come or how much it might stop grocery trips.

They don’t want to let anyone inside the food pantry because of fears of the pandemic. Which makes perfect sense. So we wait in a line of cars in the rain. People come out, volunteers. They’re donating of themselves by meeting a bunch of strangers to make sure that those strangers can eat.

Many of these volunteers are not young. They are literally risking their lives to make sure that strangers can eat. One of the most gracious charitable things I’ve witnessed.

Like the man directing the incoming cars, greying hair and a very warm smile, he gets me a one page form to fill out, on a clip board, that I’ll give to the people dispensing food. When I’m finished he comes back to my window and says, “oh good, I can use that,” about the clipboard and hurries back to the line behind me.

He reminds me of the woman who stepped out of a Red Cross response truck at Chelsea Pier in New York days after 9–11 and spoke with me because she needed a break. She had been compiling lists of the missing, and she knew with each passing moment those lists were morphing towards becoming a list of people we lost. Her bravery made her one of the more beautiful people I’ve ever seen. Seeing these people, this time helping me, brings tears to my eyes. There’s probably a lot of tears today. I pray not too many in the coming weeks and months.

I get to the point in the line where there is a sign moving slightly in the wind and the rain. It says:

Please be patient.

Wait in your car.

Open your trunk.

Food will go in the trunk.

No requests.

Another nice person asks if my trunk is open after I give him my form through my rolled down window. I say yes. It isn’t. Because my car is still in gear it won’t open the trunk until I put it into park. In my mood I’ve forgotten this. I realize my mistake after he says to another volunteer, “one.” That volunteer then turns, and disappears behind another volunteer who sits out of the rain at a small desk with a computer or tablet on which I imagine they’re there keeping track of things. I realize some of these people might technically be on staff here. I also think that today: they are all volunteers.

I put my car in park, actually pop the trunk and the volunteer puts the bag, whose contents will nourish me, a stranger to them, inside and closes it gently. I thank them, I’m sure inadequately, close my window and drive back toward the road. I re-open my window to thank the man who first greeted me and his warm smile appears again.

I pulled over down the road to scrawl some of this down, and then I’m off back towards home. Cared for, nourished, by kind strangers.

If you are able, please care for strangers and donate to https://www.feedingamerica.org/