Food pantries are a vital part of our lives today. Without them even middle class families could starve.Yet those in one of the hardest hit cities, New York have survive and still thrive because of it.
Nikita Stewart and Todd Hesiler covered New York City's food panties in Wednesday's New York Times Food section. Ms. Stewart, a Times reporter who usually writes about social services conducted the interviews, Mr. Heisler, a Pulitzer Prize winning New York Times photographer got into the various kitchens to photograph home chefs working with their food pantry choices. It's inspiring yet at the same time saddening and disturbing. There is a bravery to these people as there is a bravery to the food banks such as City Harvest who manage to survive despite the overwhelming need for food. The same goes for the Bronx's Bronxworks. Before the pandemic, this last only served under five hundred a month . Now the numbers are up to four thousand per month, thanks to job loss or office downsizing. The influx also has to do with the closing about one third of fellow pantries and soup kitchens closing due to lack of funds or lack of workers. Many quit afraid of catching the Corona virus.Sunset Park and Flushing Queens, two of the hardest hit areas have the biggest spike in food pantry visitors.
People do persist and survive. There is Jose Gavidia and his wife Leyla Moale, who manage to create dishes from their native Peru, thanks to their food pantry. Going there became part of their shared schedules and where they can get the ingredients to make limena, tuna between layers of potato. Leslie Johnson and her six year old daughter , Trinity, weren't going to go to a food pantry at first, letting others take the needed food. Yet they were in need of it themselves. Ms. Johnson was able to make chicken cutlets on her George Foreman grill, wishing she had learned how to make her mother's West Indian recipes. The Patel family of Flushing, Queens made a chichpea chole, a favorite stew from stretched out ingredients. They're not strangers to their local food pantry at the nonprofit South Asian Council for Social Services. Before the pandemic they could select items bit now they have to accept prepackaged bags. In another section of Queens, Yuliya Matveyeva creates much clamored for tacos for her five year old daughter, Marie and a friend's children. The food comes from Masbia, a Jewish food pantry that also serves meals. This is an appointment only pantry which has angered some people. Ms Matveyeva also uses recipes from her native Belarus and fuses them with American cooking.
Hopefully, the strain on food pantries across the globe will lessen as the virus abates. For now they are a vital part of our lives. Please donate or give to them. They need whatever help they can to deal with the vast amount of neediness.
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