The Times, They are A-Changing

 

I started volunteering at the big food pantry in August of 2020, back when we were all wearing masks and hardly going out at all. So I'm coming up on my five-year anniversary.

During those five years, we've moved from one location to another, lost and gained volunteers, tweaked procedures, been through three directors before the current wonderful one we have, and fed far more families than we can count. Thursday continues to be my favorite weekday morning.

My job has evolved from signing in donations to greeting the clients and registering them. Sometimes I fill and deliver carts, but usually the stream of traffic is such that I'm kept busy with the sign-in sheet. I also oversee the "choice table" where we have odd things (plantains today, boiled peanuts a while back) and boxed/canned goods that are just a little past their "best used by" dates. Today we were blessed to have a couple of cartons of -- gasp -- big name brand chocolate chip cookies, best used by May 5. I've had the opportunity to use my high school Spanish (think 1961!) with some very patient guests, and learned to spell some Russian names, some Pakistani names, and other names whose origins are mysterious.

In recent months, we've had more and more new guests and in the past few weeks, fewer guests with "foreign names." I've found myself wondering where those Haitian ladies have disappeared to; they used to be so regular. Our regular suppliers are diminishing, too; the cuts in the National budget have impacted us mightily and we have the sense that this isn't over yet. 

Today, during a brief lull in distribution, the pantry's manager came outside and sat down at the intake table with me. I thought to offer her a chocolate chip cookie, but she had a serious and determined countenance and was carrying a piece of paper. It turned out to be guidelines and instructions for the pantry intake person in the event that we were approached by ICE personnel. My blood froze up a bit -- not because I was I was afraid, but because all at once I understood why we're no longer seeing and serving Mrs. Garcia, the Haitian ladies, and Mr. All-Consonants Last name. We went over the guidelines and I took a picture of the paper to bring home and study further. And then we checked in Barbara and her daughter.

We served more than twenty-five families in the first two hours that we were open. 

When I got home, I opened that piece of paper and sat down with Lizzy to practice how to respond to an ICE representative. "I'm not authorized to speak with you," I told her. "Please wait here and I will have a staff member come out to speak with you."  She wagged her tail and licked my ankle. And then it was time for lunch.