On the 4th Saturday of every month, K and I help to serve breakfast to those in need at our church. Our church program is one adopted from the church blend that we experienced with a closed church in our area almost 2 years ago.
The program is fairly simple. If you feel you are in need, come. We will provide you with toiletries, laundry detergent, dish soap and toilet paper. We will serve you a hot breakfast on real plates with real silverware.
You do not have to qualify with some particular monetary proof. You come. We serve.
We have a lot of the same monthly visitors. We've been able to develop a lovely relationship with many of them.
We have appreciative visitors.
We have entitled visitors.
We have people who complain no matter what.
Today, we had a record crowd. We served 71 families and have basically averaged that out at probably 150 people served. (Since we have many double/triple trippers, my guess is at least 180 meals were served.)
We started serving a half hour early today since we are also hosting homeless families for the week. Another program our church is involved in helps to keep homeless family members together as a unit. They travel on to the center each day, so we needed to feed them to get them on their way early. The church member in charge of transport had no idea of serving time and was rather upset that we weren't serving breakfast at 8 AM. She could see that we were not ready. "The bulk of our donations come in during the 8 o'clock hour." She was irritated, but I told her friend, "As you stand here, you can see that we cannot make it go any faster." She agreed.
Anticipating a larger crowd, I decided to make two egg casseroles this morning. (I usually only make one.) M came trucking in with two bags of produce from a farmer co-worker, so I made some veggie cups to give out. I put everything in the oven this morning at 5:30 AM so that we could be there an hour early for our crowd.
Crowded it was.
There is one woman who we haven't seen for a few months. K and I call her The Sausage Lady. Others call her The Container Lady. She will come in and have us pile and I mean PILE food on her plate. She yells at us if we give her subpar pieces. (She doesn't like browned sausage.) She yells at us if we give her small pieces. She yells at us if we don't give her the piece she asked for. She yells at me if I cannot see (I'm short) that there are some extra bits left behind.
We have the Pancake Kids. There is a family of two adults and 8 rag tag lil kids. They are very polite. They have been taught to take only what you can eat. They have been taught that after you eat what is on your plate, you may have more. They do one pancake at a time. Each kid. Over and over.
We started running out of food at 9:15 AM. The two ovens and warmer were empty of their contents at 9:30 AM. We had to send someone out to buy more food. We went through 6 dozen eggs in less than a half hour. Usually, eggs are our fall back. At 9:55 AM, they called last pancakes.
"You can't! The pancake kids haven't been here yet! Last time they came at the last minute and we can't go without pancakes for them!"
In the meantime, The Sausage/Container lady was rounding on her third trip. She sits at a far back table, thinking that we cannot see that she brought a Market District freezer bag full of containers to place all of her food in. She comes back for more. She eats some, and containers more. Rinse and repeat. She wanted two pieces of a casserole. My serving mate told her that she'd have to come back around.
At 10:15 AM, the pancake kids arrived. One small scoop of eggs, one pancake, two sausages. Repeat x 8. They laughed. "You knew that they were coming. You wouldn't stop the pancakes." No I wouldn't.
You see, the last time we served, they were here when we broke everything down into take home containers and people could take food. They had no idea what was going on, but when I explained it, it was as if we handed their family a brand new car. They were so excited to have the extra food.
It comes time to break down what lil bit we had left. I start containering leftovers and low and behold, The Sausage/Container Lady rushes up. She grabs two containers, an empty and is standing waiting to have it filled. There are others standing behind her. I couldn't hold it in any longer. All morning, she saw our struggle to make sure we had enough to feed the masses. I paused with the counter ladies and said, "We must pray." I prayed that we would have enough food and patience.
"I know that you have other containers back at the table, too."
She looked at me and went on to get another container filled.
I went to bag up the remaining pancakes for the kids. 5 of them were standing in front of me. An older woman walked up behind them. She was holding two filled containers of food. She wanted the pancakes.
"Ma'am, I'm going to give these pancakes to the kids."
"BUT I WAS LATE TODAY AND I HAVEN'T HAD ANYTHING."
"Ma'am, you have two containers in your hands and these children have nothing."
She yelled at me again. I put two pancakes in a bag for her and told her, "I will be giving the rest of the pancakes to the children."
She mumbled something else crappy to me and went off.
Um, how low can you go? Container lady bugs me, but she has never stepped in to take food from a child.
I almost cried right there. I seriously could not get those pancakes packed up fast enough. I passed them on and they were eating them as they walked like they were a bag of chips. Those kiddos were so happy. All they wanted were some pancakes.
Several of us talked about it later. I don't regret anything I said. But, a point someone brought up-- How hungry do you have to be to take food from children?
M has referred to it as an "eat or be eaten" mentality. If you don't jump up and fight, you are going to starve.
Food insecurity. It is real. When do you say no? I guess that I hit that point today. I always said that if I had food in front of me, I would never say no. Now I have.
At 10:35 AM and after the dust had briefly settled after the great pancake denial, we had a woman at the counter asking for food for three women. "We just gave away the last of what we had." "But I am so hungry. We need food for three women. We are late, but you have to give us something. I'm just so hungry."
I got two of our men to bust out some pancakes and eggs. The woman was mad. She wanted the full spread at the end of the day.
"Ma'am, we ran short of some things today. We had a record crowd. The amount that we did have at the end, I was surprised that we did."
We served them, took care in making sure that they received their bags of goods and on the way out, I made sure to check the date for them for next month. I told them when and what times. "We do this on the 4th Saturday of the month."
Another volunteer chimed in, "Except for November and December when we shift it for the holidays."
"Well you DO something for the children at the holidays, DON'T YOU?"
"We actually do the same each day we serve."
"But I have three grandchildren who live with me." (None were with her at this time though.)
"I'm sorry ma'am, but we do the same we do every month."
Her friend piped in, "And we THANK YOU for everything that you do!"
Appreciation, not expecting more.
These ladies would have been back up for more, but I think that they got the hint that we served each of them a beautiful hot plate of food, despite having most everything broken down and cleaned. There will be next month. There will be expectations. There will be demands. Sometimes you just have to say no.
