WaHI Magazine
Food Bank Needs Help 
1 March 2004
Several grandmotherly women bundled against the biting February cold have already parked their empty grocery carts down the sidewalk 45 minutes before the Helping Hands Community Center food bank is schedule to open. In a tiny room in Holy Trinity Episcopal Church’s basement, a group of teenagers sing along to hip hop music blaring from a radio as they fill plastic shopping bags with today’s menu items: canned salmon and corned beef, pasta, vegetables, bags of beans and rice, cereal. By the time the doors open, the line extends halfway down a block of Cumming Street in Inwood.
The food bank now finds itself in the same position as the 9,000 clients a year who depend on its bi-monthly handouts to make ends meet. Out of funding, the community center’s directors are not sure how they will survive past February. Since opening in 1996, the Helping Hands food bank has always managed to patch together enough funding from grants and donations for its growing operation. From 2001 to 2002, the youth-run pantry — the only one of its kind in New York — distributed 72,901 pounds of food. But its success has helped fuel a current budget crisis. Steve Ramos, who runs the food bank, said, “We need help. We’re basically running on empty.”
As their funding sources have run dry, the demand for their services has grown. Ramos said they had to stop registering new clients months ago. Although they never turn anyone away who comes for the first time, they now give newcomers directions to other food banks and tell them not to come back. While the crowd on this Friday is a diverse mixture of young and old, Dominican, white, black, Haitian, and Puerto Rican, Ramos said the majority of their clients are Hispanic women, either seniors living on meager Social Security checks or young single mothers. “They are the working poor just doing the best they can to hang on,” he said.
Yampiero Polanco, 13, has worked at the Helping Hands food pantry for four years and now serves as its food manager.Carmen Madonado, 70, is back at the food bank for the first time in a few months. She is unsteady on her feet and was afraid of falling on icy sidewalks during December and January. Madonado and her husband, who she said is embarrassed to come stand in line, use the bag of groceries she collects twice a month to supplement Social Security checks that barely cover their rent. The government checks, she said, “are not enough, we have to conserve a lot. At the end of the month, the groceries are gone.” If the food bank runs out of funding, Madonado said, “We’ll have to take it easier.”
Reverend Johanna-Karen Johannson, a priest at Holy Trinity and the food bank’s grant writer, said their budget grew from $5,000 the first year to $55,000 this year to cover the food, operating costs, and stipends for youth leaders. The $55,000 has been harder to come by each year, however. Johannson and Ramos both attribute the food bank’s problems directly to the economic downturn since Sept. 11. Ramos said a spike in clients can be traced directly to that date. “There was such a huge cut in jobs, and there was a large number of people coming to register,” he said.
Johannson added that finding foundations and corporations willing to fund the pantry also became more difficult. “There has been more of a need from other organizations,” she said, and the increased competition means the money is spread more thinly. The policies of the federal government were also a factor, according to Johannson, who says the Bush administration’s increased military spending and decreased social spending has undercut social programs like the food bank. Echoing Johannson’s assessment, Maria K., who did not want to give her last name, is a food bank regular. “I don’t see how they could do this,” she said about the food bank’s financial crisis. “President Bush is shifting money over there [to Iraq] when he’s got these problems in his backyard.”
After receiving both her Bachelor’s and Master’s degree from Columbia University, Maria ran her own business until retirement. At first she was reluctant and embarrassed to go to the food bank, but friends finally convinced her as she struggled to pay her rent with government checks that leave little for groceries and other necessities. If the Helping Hands food bank closes, she said. “A lot of people will be hard-pressed.”
Volunteers from Fresh Youth Initiatives cart bags of food to homebound elderly, a portion of the 9,000 clients the Helping Hands food bank helps every year.More than a service to the community, the food pantry is an educational program for the teenage participants who learn leadership, responsibility, and organizational skills. Partnered with Holy Trinity Church and Fresh Youth Initiatives (FYI), the Helping Hands Community Center’s programs are focused on the development of neighborhood youth. FYI is a community organization in Washington Heights and Inwood that organizes young people to participate in service projects, including painting murals and making sleeping bags for the homeless. At Helping Hands, the young people come after school to eat a meal, play basketball, work on homework, and help with projects. The food bank, the idea of a 15-year-old FYI participant, is now “the heart and soul of Helping Hands Community Center,” according to Ramos.
Six of the young participants are training as managers, learning the ins-and-outs of how the food bank runs. Ruben Perez, 14 and a manager-in-training, said participating in the food bank has changed his life. He used to spend his free time playing video games. Now, “I’m here doing good stuff in the community,” he said, adding, “it gets me away from all the bad stuff in the streets.” Teenagers at the food bank repeatedly described the community center as a family that provides support and good advice as they make tough decisions in school and on the streets. “If I have problems, like a fight I am about to get into,” said Perez. “They give me advice and tell me to do the right thing.”
The young people are most concerned about the fate of the clients if the food bank has to cut back, but they were hopeful that Helping Hands can weather the hard times. Jhomaira Polanco, 18, is a freshman at Borough of Manhattan Community College. Involved with FYI since 2001, Polanco is now a youth leader receiving a small monthly stipend to help organize and supervise other youth at the pantry. She said her experience working at the food bank has convinced her to open a business when she graduates. “We’re not closing down,” she said optimistically. “We have so many people who come here, if we close it down it’s going to be a big deal.”
| To donate money or food, to help Helping Hands obtain funding, or to volunteer, contact: Holy Trinity Episcopal Church 20 Cumming Street New York, NY 10034 Tel: 212-567-1177 Web: www.holytrinityinwood.org |
This article appeared originally in The Manhattan Times, February 26, 2004, and is reprinted here with their permission. The Manhattan Times is a weekly local newspaper distributed free in our communities and devoted to keeping us informed about the events that affect our lives and promoting what our communities have to offer.
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