Thanksgiving is just around the corner and many of us are looking forward to a day of feast, family and fellowship. While most of us will spend the day stuffing (no pun intended) our faces, and napping off our gluttony, others will be truly thankful for having a meal at all. Some will go hungry. The Chittenden Emergency Food Shelf is on a mission to make sure no one in the Greater Burlington Area goes without a Thanksgiving turkey this year.
The Food Shelf, a program of the Champlain Valley Office of Economic Opportunity, serves not only Chittenden County but every person who walks in the door, regardless of what walk of life they have traveled. It is, however, no coincidence that the Food Shelf is located on 228 N. Winooski Avenue- in the heart of Burlington’s Old North End. Known in the area as the poorer part of town, the Old North End is by far the most culturally diverse neighborhood in Vermont, a microcosm. Abbreviated ONE, the neighborhood is a patchwork of people joined from all over the world, living together in one community
Burlington, over the years, has become a safe haven for immigrants and refugees, offering a wide variety of resources for newcomers. Edi Abeneto, the grocery distribution coordinator at the Food Shelf, claims that non-natives make up for 25% of their clientele Abeneto himself has a unique story- originally from the Democratic Republic of the Congo, he has lived all over Africa and France and now speaks six languages. He has lived in Vermont for six years, five of which he has worked at the Food Shelf, first as a translator- “I was hired here as a translator because… the language barrier is a problem as you could imagine… At the Food Shelf I speak French, I speak Lingala, I speak Swahili, Kinyarwanda, Kirundi and English…” He said, “The most important part of my job is talking to the people, listening to the people, and finding out what they need.” All six languages still don’t cover the clientele or reach the growing population from Bhutan, Nepal and Vietnam.
Although the waves of people from different parts of the world gathering in Burlington show an obvious demand for assistance, hunger doesn’t discriminate. Abeneto claims that 75% of the people using the Food Shelf services are Vermonters. This may be a surprise to many, as Vermont often acts as a vacation home for retirees and is often misconceived by outsiders as a wealthy state. Steve Conley, born and raised in the greater Burlington area now resides in the Old North End and sometimes struggles with the necessities in this time of widespread economic hardship. Conley said, “It’s hard for anyone to find a job these days and especially hard for those of us with history. I work odd job to odd job and just pick up work wherever I can. The Food Shelf offers a sense of security for me. I get bread from the distribution center several times a week and groceries when I need them. I don’t always need the help, but I always know it’s there.”
The flagship program is the actual “food shelf” (open Monday-Friday, 9:00 AM to 4:00 PM) and offers groceries to any one or any family once a month. The homeless are eligible for groceries once every two weeks and the homeless living without shelter-those on the streets- can go through the line every week. The distribution center also offers bread and produce to anyone once every day, so even when the groceries run out, people still have the opportunity to hold themselves over with bread. The Food Shelf also offers a home bound delivery program for the elderly and others with mobility issues and disabilities.
In the summer, the center operates a Brown Bag Lunch Program that reaches out to low income children who receive financial assistance throughout the school year for lunch. Many of those children might otherwise spend their summers hungry.
The center’s Soup Kitchen Program serves a hot meal every Monday through Friday from 7:00 AM to 10:30 AM, Sunday morning 10:00 AM to noon and Sunday evening 4:30 to 7:00 PM. All meals are open to the general public. Both Sunday meals are made possible through support from the University of Vermont’s Food Salvage Program and Campus Kitchen Project. The food is donated from the UVM dining system and on Sunday morning students from the university volunteer to prepare the meal on-site.
Abeneto claims that, “Every month we serve about one thousand, two hundred households. With the economy we are steadily seeing more people coming in all the time, so we will have higher numbers next month than this month and probably even more the month after that.” Helping hands are crucial. Every program at the Food Shelf survives on the dedication of volunteers. Opportunities include working the distribution line, weighing and sorting food, stocking shelves, cooking, delivering and picking up donations. Abeneto says, “There is always something to do here at the Food Shelf.”
Seth Gorman, a student at Champlain College, says, “I was probably just sitting in the library when I decided that I wanted to do something to help people, so I searched for a place I could volunteer, to donate some of my time that I don’t spend doing anything else…I wanted to find a way to help people with basic essential needs and the Food Shelf has opportunities. I started right away.” Like Seth, I too sought an opportunity at the Food Shelf and spent three days every week there this past summer. I found that my service there was just as beneficial to my own well-being as to the needs of the community- that my life was enriched. With so much cultural and class diversity, the Food Shelf is a great place to meet and work with all types of people. Even volunteers range from retired upper-class citizens to college students to criminals. The Food Shelf is just as instrumental in rehabilitating people who have been in trouble with the law as it is with feeding the poor. Gorman states, “Many [volunteers] are court ordered to complete community service, but it seems a lot of those people choose to volunteer at the Food Shelf even after their requirements have been met.”
Although it is reliant on volunteers, the Food Shelf also has ways of giving back to those who lend a helping hand. Like many who are of service at the Food Shelf, after spending quite some time volunteering, Gorman was hired as a delivery driver. He routinely drives to Colchester to pick up donations from Costco and Shaw’s, and also down to Shelburne Road where he picks up donations from Hannaford and Price Chopper.
Donations, however, aren’t limited to big block grocery stores. Local restaurants also contribute but anyone can donate food at the distribution center- a significant amount of the donations are actually from families. This year the Food Shelf has a goal of 2700 turkey donations for Thanksgiving. Abeneto says, “…we hope that we will have enough donated that every family who needs one will get one. We will be open on the Saturday before Thanksgiving so that those who are working and cannot come during the week can also get a turkey.” Donors can either drop off turkeys at the N. Winooski Ave location or can donate money in person or through mail (ten dollars buys a turkey for four). Non-perishable food drives are happening all over the Burlington area-even here at Burlington College- some specifically requesting Thanksgiving-like food (cranberry sauce, stuffing, canned vegetables, etc.).
Gorman claims that so far this season, donations have exceeded previous years. He says, “There is a lot of awareness of poverty right now, especially with the Occupy Wall Street movement. I think these donations show a way that people are starting to take care of each other. People this year seem willing to give to the less fortunate even when they are struggling themselves.”
The Food Shelf will also serve a Thanksgiving dinner on Thursday, November 24th that will be open to the community for fellowship. Many people in the area don’t have ovens to cook a turkey if they had one- they don’t have tables to eat from, or even homes to spend the day in. Even more people are without the most important part of Thanksgiving- family. The Food Shelf recognizes that hunger exceeds the needs of the stomach- that the holiday is a time when people’s hearts are hungry too.
This year folks in Chittenden County, and specifically the Old North End, should have something to truly be thankful for. For so many people, the Chittenden Emergency Food Shelf is the heart that pumps the blood of their lives; it’s the heart of their community. Like the natives and pilgrims once joined together in celebration of a good harvest, people from Vermont, Vietnam, Nepal, Bhutan, China, Burundi, Congo, Bosnia, and the ends of the earth will join at 228 N. Winooski Avenue to give thanks for the community.
