Food Lines Around the Holidays

“Myths can be comforting,” Ms. Purvis said. “Who wants to believe you can work your whole life and end up not being able to afford food? You want to believe those people had to have had something go wrong with them, in order for them to end up in that place. It’s scary to think you work two jobs and not be able to afford food.”

…From Brooklyn to the Bronx, in churches and community centers, she found a range of food pantries: from well-stocked, efficiently run operations to mom-and-pop outfits where good intentions exceeded capacity. What they had in common was need, with people waiting three hours or more for a bag of basic grocery items. Meat was a treat. In some places, baby formula and diapers were among the necessities handed out. Ms. O’Loughlin said that while most of the places she visited limited people to a monthly allotment, more resourceful people trekked to different pantries around the city. Following them home, she saw scenes where people huddled in building lobbies to trade food items or went upstairs to share with homebound neighbors.

The quote is from Margarette Purvis, the president and chief executive of Food Bank For New York City in Lens, the New York Times’s photography blog, which has images of food lines today. Thanksgiving and the December holidays are the times when donations to food banks and other charities that help the hungry and needy see big increases, and people are hyper aware of the places that are trying to help. It’s a good reminder that these food lines exist year-round. (See also: “How a Food Bank Changed a Community,” an excerpt from Melville House from earlier this year.)

Photo: State Farm

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