Barre Montpelier TIMES ARGUS
By David Delcore Staff Writer Nov 28, 2024
“I come here when it gets to the point where I absolutely need it and right now I absolutely need it,” said the man who considers himself something of a not-so-regular “regular” at the food shelf where business was brisk during a holiday shortened week and, as a result, pickings will be slim when it reopens on Monday.
They were already getting there early Wednesday afternoon when Sousa — box in hand — sought to replenish supplies that he said were beyond gone at his mountaintop home in Orange.
“The shelves in my cupboard are bare like that,” Sousa said, pointing to an empty rack that was well stocked with food before the morning rush depleted a hastily obtained supply.
It was a comparison, not a complaint from a plain-spoken man, who mused moments earlier that his barren refrigerator might be a waste of electricity.
“I should probably shut it off,” he said.
Still, Sousa didn’t appear to take more than he needed to make it to the end of a month that simply lasted longer than his food benefits.
“I am on 3SquaresVT, but unfortunately it didn’t last this month,” he explained.
That has happened to Sousa before, and when it does the resource of last resort is an invaluable asset and the fact that it stocks pet food is, in his view, a bonus.
“I have two rescue dogs,” he said, while adding a couple of pre-packaged portions of dog food to a half-empty box that included some canned goods, a couple of frozen meals, and a few fresh vegetables.
Sousa isn’t the only food shelf patron familiar with the end-of-month pinch, and Sandra Cushing, who arrived hours earlier and waited for the food shelf to open on Wednesday, noted this month was particularly challenging.
Cushing said her fixed-income household includes three growing grandchildren, who were all home from school this week.
“When the kids are on vacation the food doesn’t go as far,” the Barre woman explained, noting that while she was well set for Thanksgiving dinner, she was running low on other commodities.
“This is a necessary trip for us to get through,” Cushing said of what is typically her month-ending visit to Capstone.
Barre resident Phyllis Hussey, who has been using the food shelf for seven years, said her twice-a-month visits are more essential than they’ve ever been.
“It (the food shelf) is very important because I don’t get very many food stamps and everything is going up and up and up,” Hussey said. “The rent went up, the lights went up, everything is going up and I live on Social Security.”
That hasn’t gone up as much; fortunately, the price of admission to the food shelf hasn’t changed. The food there is still free and Hussey, who received one of the 100 turkeys they distributed earlier this month — 60 of them donated by the local Kiwanis Club — said she was very thankful for that.
“It’s been a big help,” she said.
That’s the point, according to Emmanuelle Soumeilhan, who oversees the food shelf and the community kitchen where cook Paul Falto crowed, “No one can go hungry” first thing Wednesday morning.
Falto was preparing breakfast at the time, while Nick Klein — one of Soumeilhan’s 35 valued volunteers — was loading cartons of just-delivered eggs into a cooler.
It was the calm before the storm, that Soumeilhan said at days’ end could have been stormier. It was on Monday when more than 90 people showed up at the food shelf, depleting its supplies and requiring an emergency shopping trip to restock.
The final count on Wednesday was 69, which is considerably more than the 40-ish families the food shelf served on an average day when Soumeilhan started work last year.
Liz Scharf, director of community economic development, said the increase has been even more pronounced. Over the last several years, she said, the food shelf, which is open three days a week, went from providing food to roughly 25 families a day, to regularly serving thee and, more often than not, four times that amount.
It’s why the woman with the too-long title spent Tuesday feeling like a contestant on the old game show “Supermarket Sweep.” Armed with a voucher from the Salvation Army and some petty cash, Scharf did $500 worth of strategic speed shopping at Hannaford to get the food shelf through Wednesday.
The food shelf was closed for Thanksgiving and on Friday when it is usually open. That’s probably a good thing, because Scharf’s mid-morning prediction that the shelves would be largely empty by the end of the day proved prophetic.
“It’s been really hard to keep up with the demand,” she said, predicting, “It’s all going to start again on Monday.”
Scharf didn’t hear Hussey’s candid, but cordial rant about rising prices, but would have nodded in agreement if she had.
Like everything else, the cost of groceries is going up, and Scharf, who just got a fresh reminder of how much $500 will buy at the supermarket these days, said that has had an impact.
“Food is the one place you can squeeze your budget a little bit, because it’s not a fixed bill like a car payment, or your phone, or your rent” she said. “If there’s a place where you’re going to cut your budget, it’s generally going to be food because people can come here to get free food.”
Thanks to partnerships with organizations, like the Vermont Foodbank and Community Harvest, Capstone receives a significant amount of food for free. However, it does pay for a good chunk of the food that is given away and isn’t immune to rising prices.
Capstone’s annual food bill is roughly $100,000 and raising money to cover that cost is a big part of Capstone’s annual “Fuel Your Neighbor” campaign.
The campaign, which kicks off Tuesday, exceeded its $325,000 goal last year and, with the help of dollar-for-dollar matches pledged by sponsors from EastRise Credit Union to The Alchemist, they are hoping to do that again.
Alison Calderara, chief of programs and advancement at Capstone, said failure isn’t a viable option when it comes to a campaign that is always launched on Giving Tuesday and runs through Town Meeting Day in March.
“It’s critical money for us,” she said of donated funds that are used for emergency fuel and food assistance. “We need to meet the need.”
Calderara won’t get any argument from Montpelier resident Tina Cyz, who worked one of the volunteer shifts Wednesday with her husband, Stephan.
“This is an incredible need,” she said. “When you work here, you see how much of a difference it makes.”
For some, like Christina Collins, it’s an occasional help.
Collins, who took a cooking class at Capstone and has referred friends to the food shelf, said she hadn’t visited it in a while, but left with a full bag Wednesday afternoon.
“Sometimes when we’re running low, I know where to go,” she explained.
Kris Reed, who has been battling housing insecurity and recently landed a cut-rate room at the Pierre Motel, was the day’s last patron. He didn’t complain about the selection and couldn’t have used much of the food that was already gone.
“I took whatever looked appetizing that I can do something with in a motel room,” he said.
Reed did take the next to last of the 114 pies — some pumpkin, some “crumb top apple” — Capstone staff baked with Falto earlier in the week before heading for a door that will open again on Monday.
