A View From the Inside

Karla Wardroup, our Kids Cafe Coordinator, asked me to post the following. Well, OK, I "persuaded" her to do it...

I can’t imagine that there are people who would want to read a blog written by a food bank “insider” but I am committed to writing it anyway. Maybe committed is not the right word- I am persuaded to try.

I come from 25 years of food service work to the non-profit world. Quite a change- believe me, the bottom line was, is and always will be profit in the restaurant world. Before I opened a restaurant in Ruidoso, New Mexico, in 1973 with my first husband, I thought that owning a restaurant meant waltzing down to this elegant place, dressed in an evening ensemble in order to graciously inquire how people’s meal was.

So, I learned different. That’s another blog.

And before I came to the non-profit world of food banking, I thought, well, I am trying to remember just what I did think. Hmm. Honestly, I thought that people would be lining up outside the Food Bank warehouse, and they would be thin, washed out, humble poor folks. Very grateful for what they received.

And while we do have many grateful, humble folks who come to us for help, we also have those who are angry about their situation in life that has led them to us. And many who are obese, unhealthy, and not very grateful- not necessarily all at once. But that doesn’t really matter.

What matters to me is that every day, we who work here, we try. We try to get better food for our folks, we try to get more money to buy trucks, forklifts, walk in coolers, and warehouse roofs, and we try to treat all around us with dignity, or maybe just try to treat them like fellow travelers.

I had a friend once who would always say to me, “to try is to lie.” I hated it when she said that in response to my whiny repetitive promises. I now believe that to try is like the dictionary says- it is to “make an effort to do or accomplish (something)”. Not a bad attitude. Things get done that way.