June 8, 2023 at St Joseph Food Pantry in Burgaw

All Saints Support of St Joseph's Food Pantry, 1303 US 117, Burgaw, NC 28425; Patricia Kopchick, Director; 518-275-9887; stjoesfoodpantry@yahoo.com

June 8, 2023: Households Served – 143; Total People Served – 510

• 127 households participated in the Healthy Pantry Initiative at St. Joseph’s by selecting items from a wide range of fresh produce including onions, kale, rutabagas, squash, avocados, cabbage, mandarins, and peaches. Marianne and Justin assisted guests filling and carrying bags to cars for incapacitated family members & neighbors without transportation. 

• Food carried to qualifying households by friends or family members is not included in the Healthy Pantry Totals because these households are not on site to personally participate in the selection of healthy foods for their boxes, nor do they have access to tasting samples.

• Maureen and Lubna invited guests to choose a dessert from the table of pastries donated by local bakeries.

• Barbara and Danzi welcomed guests to the sharing table where donated items were displayed.

• Diapers donated by All Saints were offered to children and adults who needed them. 

Visitors flock to St. Joseph’s Food Pantry because their families struggle with food insecurity. Volunteers who serve these neighbors on Thursday afternoons are frequently touched by their amazing resiliency and fortitude. At St. Joseph’s Pantry they become familiar with how poverty manifests itself in a long list of hardships that tragically scar the daily lives of low-income neighbors. Yet these generous volunteers leave St. Joseph’s each week with sentiments of admiration, not pity, for our guests. 

Merrill, who will be 89 years old next month, is a frequent visitor. A nephew drives Merrill and with his mother, Merrill’s younger sister, to the pantry. He lives nearby. Merrill was born on a tenant farm in Western part of Pender County. She remembers a happy childhood with loving parents and 10 siblings. The family always had good vegetables to eat from the farm where they sharecropped. Merrill’s mother did most of the farming while her father worked in logging. When Merrill finished school in Pender County, she went to live with an aunt in Norfolk, Virginia. where she worked in a restaurant. Later, she moved to New York where she worked first in a factory making drapes and then at the U. S. Post Office. for 18 years. It was in NY when that she first saw her birth certificate, which revealed that her name was not Merrill, but Maurial. Maurial married while in N.Y. and raised her four children there.  In 1975 she returned to Pender County with her husband to care for her sick mother, who died two and half years later. She remained in her mother’s house after her husband’s death in 2003 and continues to live there alone, managing on her monthly $950 social security check. Watching this amazing woman maneuver with a cane to get out of her chair is a wonder that makes all eyes in the room glisten a bit. Merrill, fiercely independent, refuses a helping hand. 

St. Joseph’s Food Pantry was there for Merrill and 142 other food insecure households on June 8th. Approximately 50 people come together each week to enable this mission. Volunteers pick up food from the Food Pantry in Wilmington and many local businesses and parishes. Others unload and store food on the shelves and freezers of the pantry or pack food in boxes, load cars, and keep the site clean. Then there are the teams that register guests, manage the parking lot, as well as set up and maintain the pastry, produce, and sharing tables. Pantry operations are supported by the many financial contributors who enable the purchases of refrigerators, freezers, generator, tents, etc. This week I will highlight two new volunteers, Danzi and Lubna, high school seniors, who will be with us for the summer. They assisted Merrill and her younger sister in choosing a pretty blouse from the sharing table and a pastry to go. While Merrill was getting out of her chair, I noticed that Danzi rushed to support Merrill’s younger sister, 84 years old, as she struggled to get to her feet. Danzy’s much needed help was gratefully accepted by the younger sister. The sisters then joined their driver, Merrill’s nephew, who was waiting at the door. Before leaving, both women expressed gratitude for both food and friendship which they find at St. Joseph’s Food Pantry.