Food Pantry Reaches Out to Needy

Cambridge resident John H. O'Neal used to earn $700 to $800 per week as a retail auto dealer.

Today O'Neal belongs to a growing class of unemployed but job-seeking city residents who depend on Cambridge food pantries, like the Bread and Justice Food Pantry in Central Square, to "make ends meet" and survive bleak economic times.

"Without [the pantry] it would be very, very difficult," said Steve J. Livingston, a volunteer at the 11 Inman Street pantry and a client of the pantry himself. "We'd be eating a lot of pasta if it wasn't for the pantry. And my kids are pretty tired of pasta."

Two thousand families like Livingston's have been handed free rations of food in the past 18 months alone, said Jerald Bergman, a food program coordinator at the Cambridge Economic Opportunity Committee (CEOC). And this number is expected to increase in the upcoming months.

The pantry offers monthly rations to Cambridge residents who show a demonstrated need. In addition to having pantry hours three times a week for two hours a day, the pantry offers referral to counseling services and a new program, the One Dollar a Bag food program which will be kicked off tomorrow.

Last November, Cambridge voters expressed support of efforts to stop hunger among residents by overwhelmingly passing Massachusetts' first right-to-food referendum. The food question guarantees every citizen the right to nutritious food.

But city financial support of the pantry was non-existent until last Monday, when City Manager Robert W. Healy and the City Council approved the appropriation of $43,000 to supplement the city's food pantry program.

And, according to Bergman and pantry volunteers and clients, this show of financial support is long overdue for such a comprehensive welfare service.

The pantry, located at 11 Inman Street, is only one of nine food pantries in Cambridge. It operates using donations, food drives, food contributions from the Boston Food Bank. It is also supplemented by programs such as Food For Free, which provides the pantries with fresh produce and bread from area wholesalers and supermarkets.

But, in addition to pantries, there are 35 programs in total under the umbrella of the $43,000 lump sum the city has doled out. So if the money is divided evenly among the programs, the food pantry network may only reap $1000 from the allotment, according to Bergman.

"This is just as much a focal point of human services as any place in the entire city," Bergaman said yesterday, standing in the middle of the cramped, basement space of the CEOC building around the corner from City Hall.

Wooden shelves filled with U.S. Department of Agriculture surplus canned food and assorted boxes of dry cereal line the concrete walls of the former garage and storage space that used to be mice infested. And the remaining space is taken up by scattered boxes of bread, oranges and rice and the line of people waiting their turn to collect their monthly groceries.

Growing unemployment and layoffs coupled with a shrinking job market has increased the number of people the pantry has served in the past few months, according to volunteers at the pantry.

And with the stinging effects of the recession beginning to sink in, pantries across the city will have to be able to handle the growing numbers of hard-struck residents whose unemployment checks and welfare payments are not enough.

"The country's in a recession, but New England is in a depression," said Livingston. "I don't think people realize how bad, how tight it is out here."

Most food pantry clients have no jobs to return to and only have the choice of living off welfare checks of accepting employment that pay less than welfare.

"It's either this or $4.25 an hour at Bradless," said Winnie Jewell, a four year East Cambridge resident. "Believe me, there's nothing out there."