Food pantry serves three days of security each month

By Zara Lockshin

“Staten Island is sometimes called ‘The Forgotten Borough,’” says Madeline Morales, who runs the food pantry at the Salvation Army Port Richmond Corps, which operates out of a small brick church, one of more than two dozen food pantries on Staten Island. “Staten Islanders feel since other boroughs are more populated (larger) they get the more attention then Staten Island,” she wrote in an email.

Morales distributes meals to 250-300 people a month, four days a week; households are limited to one visit per month because of limited resources. “A lot of people say, ‘I never thought I would be here,’” Morales says. “And I tell them, ‘We never know what we’re going to go through.’ We have to have compassion for our fellow human beings. It breaks my heart when they say, ‘I’m just embarrassed to be here.’ I’m like, ‘Really? There’s nothing to be embarrassed about.’”

More than 54,000 people on Staten Island – 11 percent of the population – rely on SNAP benefits to help meet their nutritional needs. Advocates and city officials say that food insecurity – the official measure of disrupted eating patterns and inability to buy food – is widespread on Staten Island. “Hunger is everywhere on Staten Island, not just the north shore,” says Dan Kennedy, director of food advocacy at Project Hospitality, who also helps people all over Staten Island apply for SNAP benefits.

Kennedy is a member of the Staten Island Task Force, a coalition of over 24 food pantries and soup kitchens in Staten Island, and all of them report an increased need. The Port Richmond pantry provides enough food for three meals for three days for each family member. Morales, 51, greets clients in the quiet waiting room upstairs, her hair tied back in a youthful ponytail. Morales grew up on Staten Island, the first generation in her Puerto Rican family to be born here, and she has a soft accent. The waiting room has a cozy feel, with comfortable grey chairs and lots of sunlight. “I like to think that I welcome the clients,” she says. “Some of the clients I know them already by heart, their families and what they’re going through. I get to sit and talk with them. They also know my family, and ask how my family’s doing and ask about my granddaughter. It’s become a little bit more personal, they’re comfortable coming.”

Morales sees between ten to two dozen people a day. “I notice the weather impacts that. If it’s really cold, a lot of people won’t come in, especially because a lot of people take the bus here,” Morales says. “I get clients from all different situations. Either they’ve lost their job, or got hours cut and they’re not receiving what they’re used. Some went into retirement and are on fixed income.”

New York City measures food insecurity – the inability to buy the food necessary for a healthy life – by the gap between the meals people need and the meals they can afford. The North Shore, which includes Port Richmond, has the largest meal gap on Staten Island, according to Food Bank of New York City’s 2015 maps; residents miss 4.3 to 5.8 million meals a year because they cannot afford food.

Frank and Jodie, a newly-engaged couple who are both unemployed, walked in to the Salvation Army Port Richmond without an appointment. They requested that only their first names be used because of the personal nature of the subject matter. “I can help you out in an emergency,” Morales told them. Frank and Jodie live off Frank’s disability checks and SNAP, but it isn’t enough. “Food stamps are only giving me $184 for one adult, per month,” Frank says.

Morales tries to spend her limited budget on healthy food. She gets some grant money from Richmond County, which enables her to order fresh produce, eggs and meat that she can pick up in small amounts and use right away, unlike the larger food bank items delivered once a week.

Most of the Port Richmond Salvation Army’s funding is from the Food Bank of New York and United Way, which give her a credit toward food she orders – but one of the drawbacks, according to Morales, is that clients see the same items at different pantries.

They aren’t always what her clients need. “We get a lot of families, especially families with babies. I see them first when they’re expecting and then they come in with a baby, which is the cutest thing,” Morales says. Parents need diapers and baby formula, some of the hardest items to get. “When people think of food pantries, they think of food. This is stuff we have to advocate for to get donated. We reach out to the community and churches that partner with us.”

On one day the pantry – a set of metal racks – was stocked with peanut butter, oatmeal, bran flakes, toasty o’s, canned green beans, cranberry juice, orange juice, one can of sliced carrots, canned corn, chewy chocolate granola bars, whole wheat spaghetti, sardines in tomato sauce, canned Alaskan red salmon, and pigeon peas. A produce bin had cauliflower, cucumbers, eggplant, and grapefruit. The bottom rack had individually packaged croissants and cakes, which undermined Morales’s health push, but when the local Starbucks donates pastries, she doesn’t say no. Her clients like it.

The Salvation Army Port Richmond embraced the client choice model about a year ago. “Client choice is instead of having prepackaged bags, when clients come in they go through the shelves I have and they pick out specifically what they do eat, that way they won’t take something they won’t eat,” Morales says. “A lot of agencies are trying to push client choice because not only does it help the clients know they’re receiving something they can actually use, because a lot have dietary restrictions, it helps the pantries know what to order.”

The client choice model means that some items, like canned carrots, go untouched; Morales stocks them in part because she depends on canned food drives from churches and local schools for about 30 to 35 percent of her inventory. Clients choose white rice and not brown rice, so she orders less of it. And not surprisingly, kids want sugared cereal. But Morales has some tricks. “I hide the Frosted Flakes in the back and don’t bring it out until the healthier cereal is gone,” she said. “But some clients pick up on this and know to come at the end of the month.”

Morales influences her clients’ choices by encouraging them to try new fruits and vegetables. Today she has convinced Ebony, a mother of six who chose not to provide her last name, to try dried cranberries and eggplant.

“Cranberry juice or orange?” Morales asks?

“Cranberry,” Ebony replies.

Sardines or salmon?”

“Salmon.”

“Whole wheat pasta?”

“No thank you. I don’t like the whole grain.”

“Dried cranberries? They’re sweet,” Morales explains.

“Okay, I’ll take some.”
“Grapefruit?”

“Yes.”

“Eggplant?”

Ebony hesitates. “I want it but I don’t know how to cook it,” she says. Morales enthusiastically gives her a recipe: “I clean and dice it into cubes and I sauté it with garlic, onions, and peppers; sometimes I put salmon on top.”

“Give me one,” Ebony says. “My kids have to start eating healthy.”

“If I told them how to make eggplant parmesan it would be too overwhelming,” says Morales. “They would look at me like it’s too much. That’s why I tell them how to sauté it.” But do they eat it? “Yes, they’ll come back and tell me how much their family liked it,” Morales says.

 

Tags: Food bank, food pantry, North Shore, SalvationArmy, Staten Island