Hi Neighbor,
It started as an effort by Advance Local, our parent company. The leadership team thought it a good idea to get employees across the company into their communities, doing volunteer work.
It’s happening in markets across the country. Places like Michigan and Oregon. Massachusetts and New Jersey. Pennsylvania, Cleveland and Syracuse. Birmingham and Huntsville.
And, of course, Staten Island. It’s not a novel idea for the Advance/SILive.com. We’ve been involved in our community forever.
We offer our people time during their workday to participate in any effort to make our community a better place. To help our neighbors in need. Like helping at food pantries, or community gardening where vegetables and fruit go to the pantries. Beach cleanups and building paths in Freshkills Park.
So when my granddaughter, Olivia, mentioned she needed to do community service in preparation for her upcoming Confirmation, I was ready.
It was a flyer advertising a “community giveback” that caught my eye, marking Martin Luther King Day. It was to take place at one of Staten Island’s historic churches, Faith United Methodist in Port Richmond.
National Council of Negro Women members gather at the end of the Martin Luther King Day community giveback. (Faith Archibald)Faith Archibald
”Join us,” was a headline on the National Council of Women’s flyer.
My granddaughter is 13. She would have gotten a kick out of cleaning up Midland Beach. But helping people in need is something her mom and dad thought she should experience.
So we took the National Council of Negro Women up on their offer and did join them, along with a few other Staten Island Advance/SILIve.com colleagues.
Drive around Staten Island any morning and you’ll see scores of people lined up outside churches in Port Richmond or St. George, or in front of a non-descript building on Victory Boulevard in Tompkinsville.
I have. And just drive by.
This time, I didn’t.
We arrived at Faith United about an hour before the doors were to open. It was cold. Very cold. The low that night was 14 degrees.
Yet outside they stood. Patiently and quietly, bundled so you could barely see their faces. A line. Maybe 50 people on it already. They held tight to their folding shopping carts. Wagons. Enormous shopping bags. All to cart home their treasures, sometimes home a couple of miles away. If they even had a home.
Members of the community gather around to receive necessities at Faith United Methodist Church. (Faith ArchibaldFaith Archibald
Inside the church’s lower level, before the doors opened, was organized chaos. Dozens of volunteers from five different organizations sorted and stacked all kinds of products donated by Amazon, from cellular phone cases to bottled water and juice. To canned soda and canned food.
Other volunteers divided used clothing by size, folded and stacked it. Shoes on one table. Coats on another. Baby supplies, hats and gloves. There were high blood pressure and glucose checking stations. Hot meals for all attendees.
Our job was to fill clear plastic bags with carrots, onions and beets. Olivia handled the onions and carrots. I handled the beets, sealed the bags and boxed them.
Lambda Kappa Mu Sorority Inc. members at Faith United Methodist Church on Martin Luther King Jr. Day. (Faith Archibald)Faith Archibald
We did about a hundred when the doors opened.
“Make sure they have a ticket for the Amazon table,” one organizer shouted above the din. Each received a ticket as they entered the room.
“Some of them go out and come back three times.”
It’s a good thing we were assigned to the onions/beets/carrots table. If we were at the welcoming table, everybody would have gotten three tickets.
Every day, we hear or read about neighbors who cannot afford food or essential everyday supplies, no matter what the president tries to convince us.
Reading about it is one thing. Experiencing it is another.
Volunteers from Jack and Jill of Staten Island. (Faith Archibald)Faith Archibald
It was gratifying at the end of the day to know we helped people. Even a little. But it was game-changing to know that a 13-year-old, my granddaughter, who knows of abject poverty in theory, spent four hours in the reality of it.
She experienced the pride in our neighbors seeking help. And she experienced their gratitude.
And we both discovered the struggles Fellowship Baptist Church faces, a church that has been hosting food pantries for 50 years. They face a $16,000 heating bill. Water is leaking into the rooms where food and supplies are stored. Plaster walls are crumbling in places.
Yet our dedicated neighbors – the volunteers – show up every day to help our neighbors in need.
Olivia and I will be back. See it once and you can’t help not wanting to help more.
Brian
Oh by the way: Our president seems perturbed that he did not receive the Nobel Peace Prize and implied he’d take Greenland by force as a result. Never mind that Denmark does not award it but a Norwegian Nobel committee does. Most would keep that disappointment to themselves. But Donald J. Trump has a thing about ranting on his social media account or in texts. And Greenland is his target. Norway’s Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Stoere got a text from Trump: “Considering your Country decided not to give me the Nobel Peace Prize for having stopped 8 Wars PLUS, I no longer feel an obligation to think purely of Peace, although it will always be predominant, but can now think about what is good and proper for the United States of America.” In other words, it’s payback time. I’ve received a few awards over my many years at the Advance. Perhaps President Trump might be amenable to having one of mine instead of attacking Denmark. Although I was very appreciative, I’ve never been that fond of a miniature moosehead I received back in the ‘70s from the Loyal Order of the Moose.