{"id":112137,"date":"2026-01-25T20:26:30","date_gmt":"2026-01-25T20:26:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/112137\/"},"modified":"2026-01-25T20:26:30","modified_gmt":"2026-01-25T20:26:30","slug":"want-to-know-real-poverty-visit-a-food-pantry-from-the-editor","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/112137\/","title":{"rendered":"Want to know real poverty? Visit a food pantry | From the editor"},"content":{"rendered":"

Hi Neighbor,<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s happening in markets across the country. Places like Michigan and Oregon. Massachusetts and New Jersey. Pennsylvania, Cleveland and Syracuse. Birmingham and Huntsville.<\/p>\n

And, of course, Staten Island. It\u2019s not a novel idea for the Advance\/SILive.com. We\u2019ve been involved in our community forever.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

So when my granddaughter, Olivia, mentioned she needed to do community service in preparation for her upcoming Confirmation, I was ready.<\/p>\n

It was a flyer advertising a \u201ccommunity giveback\u201d that caught my eye, marking Martin Luther King Day. It was to take place at one of Staten Island\u2019s historic churches, Faith United Methodist in Port Richmond.<\/p>\n

\"TheNational Council of Negro Women members gather at the end of the Martin Luther King Day community giveback. (Faith Archibald)Faith Archibald<\/p>\n

\u201dJoin us,\u201d was a headline on the National Council of Women\u2019s flyer.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

Drive around Staten Island any morning and you\u2019ll 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.<\/p>\n

I have. And just drive by. <\/p>\n

This time, I didn\u2019t.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

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. <\/p>\n

\"CommunityMembers of the community gather around to receive necessities at Faith United Methodist Church. (Faith ArchibaldFaith Archibald<\/p>\n

Inside the church\u2019s 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. <\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

\"LambdaLambda Kappa Mu Sorority Inc. members at Faith United Methodist Church on Martin Luther King Jr. Day. (Faith Archibald)Faith Archibald<\/p>\n

We did about a hundred when the doors opened.<\/p>\n

\u201cMake sure they have a ticket for the Amazon table,\u201d one organizer shouted above the din. Each received a ticket as they entered the room.<\/p>\n

\u201cSome of them go out and come back three times.\u201d<\/p>\n

It\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

Reading about it is one thing. Experiencing it is another. <\/p>\n

\"JackVolunteers from Jack and Jill of Staten Island. (Faith Archibald)Faith Archibald<\/p>\n

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. <\/p>\n

She experienced the pride in our neighbors seeking help. And she experienced their gratitude.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

Yet our dedicated neighbors \u2013 the volunteers \u2013 show up every day to help our neighbors in need.<\/p>\n

Olivia and I will be back. See it once and you can\u2019t help not wanting to help more.<\/p>\n

Brian<\/p>\n

Oh by the way: Our president seems perturbed that he did not receive the Nobel Peace Prize and implied he\u2019d 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\u2019s Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Stoere got a text from Trump: \u201cConsidering 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.\u201d In other words, it\u2019s payback time. I\u2019ve 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\u2019ve never been that fond of a miniature moosehead I received back in the \u201870s from the Loyal Order of the Moose.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Hi Neighbor, It started as an effort by Advance Local, our parent company. The leadership team thought it…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":112138,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[39],"tags":[9,24,63,134,136,135],"class_list":{"0":"post-112137","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-staten-island","8":"tag-new-york","9":"tag-new-york-city","10":"tag-nyc","11":"tag-staten-island","12":"tag-staten-island-headlines","13":"tag-staten-island-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/112137","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=112137"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/112137\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/112138"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=112137"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=112137"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=112137"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}