BRATTLEBORO — The Commons' Letters from Readers section [Voices, Nov. 25] was recently flooded with the plight of the homeless and hungry. This is a good attention - and I am happy to inform any reader of the state of ground-zero hungry in Brattleboro.
In the four years I have been working at one of the two community kitchens in town, we have seen two politicians attend us, both at election time, then not seen them again. We have never seen a Selectboard person, nor a journalist. We did once have a professor from SIT who stood around with a clipboard until I asked her how she herself would like that.
Anyway, this is the real deal about who actually does what. Cooks show up at 7 a.m.; support staff, typically around 9. We obtain food from the Vermont Foodbank, to which all local supermarkets contribute, including the Brattleboro Food Co-op, Hannaford, Price Chopper, and Aldi.
We do not always know what ingredients we will get in advance, so the meal plan is on about a 10-day schedule when it is not on an hour-to-hour schedule.
St. Brigid's Kitchen is our sister organization, providing a similar service, but at Loaves and Fishes we also provide for a daycare center of 30-some kids, their families, and their teachers. With take-outs, the daily demand is about 175 meals.
This number is not going south, but it seems to be increasing - un-dramatically, but certainly by about 5 percent a year in round numbers.
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Thing is, when you write so much in the newspaper about hungry people, nothing much happens at our end - not more food, nor more equipment, nor more volunteers. Did I mention that the average volunteer age is high 60s? And since there are few media reports on folks who can put in 15 hours a week, you should know we receive no pay either.
You will then appreciate that our 7 a.m. conversations in the kitchen do not reside on fantasy scenarios of things radically changing for the better. Our exchanges are not in the least cynical, and they err on the side of sensible expectation.
We all show up to give people as healthy a meal as we can, and also as a reprieve to them from being second-class citizens on the street, to people who can feel of themselves they are part of our society - at least for an hour.
This is not nothing.
This entirely unofficial communication from our kitchen is to encourage not as much talk about hunger or “action plans,” but acknowledgement to what is already being done in our community, which was not so much mentioned in the letters column.
I mention this not as much to seek sympathy, or even funding - though, if you feel moved, we should prefer the latter - but to explain the circumstances and orientation of those we serve and the basis from which we do so.