Community Human Services Provides Food for All

Volunteer Divya Patel, a pharmacy student at the University of Pittsburgh, hands bags of fresh produce to local patron Wayne Young.

words: McCall Behringer

photos: McCall Behringer

Boxes are stacked five high and, as volunteers start to unpack, the smell of fresh cilantro floods the air. While volunteers organize tables full of fresh tomatoes, onions and peppers, customers begin to pile into the purple chairs in the waiting room.

The tables at the Community Human Services Food Pantry in Oakland start to buckle under the weight of the farm-fresh food available to those in need. At the same time, the waiting room overflows with more than 60 people waiting to walk through the pantry.

The Food Pantry is situated between houses on Lawn Street and opens its doors to between 700 and 900 families every month. The pantry serves those families who chronically struggle to provide food, as well as those who are in temporary need from something like a sudden job loss.

Programs Coordinator Mel Cronin says anyone in need is welcome.

“We provide services to anyone who needs food assistance in Oakland,” she says. “There’s a lot of temporary need, so not everyone is coming here monthly.”

The center runs on the honor system, and Cronin explains that customers report their income, a factor in determining eligibility.

Sherry Brown is a regular. An Oakland resident, she struggles with her diabetes and maintaining a healthy diet.

“To be honest, I can’t afford the fruits and vegetables that your doctor wants you to eat as a severe diabetic,” she says. “I was at a clinic and a lady told me about this, and I’ve been coming ever since.”

Lydia Strickling, a junior at Duquesne University and volunteer at the pantry, sorts fresh basil for distribution to community members.

The Food Pantry provided opportunities beyond just food for Brown.

“I started getting involved with the staff upstairs because I’m a little dyslexic,” she says.

Friendly staff members helped her look up health-related information on the internet. To further assist with patrons’ health, nursing students from the nearby University of Pittsburgh staff the center, too.

The makeshift nurses corner in a back office features a privacy screen, scale, blood pressure cuff and information about common health issues. The bulletin board in the waiting room has job postings, housing opportunities and a bucket of free condoms. Upstairs, there are computers that visitors can use for any needs they might have.

For patron Wayne Young, 56, who spent much of his life reaching out to veterans in need and helping them find resources to sustain themselves, the Food Pantry was there when he stopped teaching and found himself in a crisis.

“I said, ‘Wayne, there are resources available. Use the resources you’ve been promoting,’” he says.

Young found fellowship as well as food at the pantry.

“A lot of people know other people,” he says. “Pretty much everybody knows everybody or have seen everybody in the area.”

He sees the Food Pantry as a place where you receive assistance but also find support from the people, staff and other customers.

“You don’t feel threatened,” he says. “There’s no violence. It’s a warm atmosphere.”

The smiles stretched across the faces of volunteers as they help a customer pick out vegetables, and the laughter of customers in the waiting room are examples of the warm atmosphere Young describes. But the atmosphere can also be found in a quiet corner of the pantry where a volunteer offers a snack to a child holding her mother’s jacket while she picks out a box of pasta.

Nick Drain, a former intern and consistent volunteer, says the reason he returns to the Food Pantry is the minute-to-minute interactions. Drain has spent over 600 hours walking through the Food Pantry with people. The commitment to volunteering is essential to the operation of the Food Pantry

“It shows the community around you is willing to help one another,” he says. “The things provided here are necessities: It’s food, the basic thing you live off of.”

Volunteers make two trips to a customer’s car or help them load everything into bags they can carry onto the bus. Even the most timid of customers smile at the extra work volunteers do to make the process as easy as possible. One customer thanks a volunteer twice as she grabs her box of fresh food to take home to her family.

For a moment, the line between volunteer and customer is blurred, and neither seems to be in a less fortunate situation. Instead, two people carry boxes of food out the door while laughing and exchanging smiles.

Cronin talks about the way she wants volunteers to approach the Food Pantry and work with the people they meet there.

“I’m not defined as an individual by the money that’s in my bank,” she says. “I am a human being. My name is Mel. I walk on this planet just the same as you do, as the customers do.”

The Food Pantry isn’t just a place where people receive food; it’s a place where people find community and friendship.

“Whether you’re standing in the food pantry handing out the food or you’re receiving the food, people are people,” Cronin says.