The Tuesday Morning Regulars

The last time I volunteered for anything was in basic training. The sergeant asked for college graduates to handle a special assignment. Idiot that I am, I raised my hand, and for the next week found myself on latrine duty with guys from Auburn, Ole Miss and Ball State.
With that blunder in mind, I was hesitant to leap into the wonderful world of Columbia volunteers. But I courageously entered the modern brick building housing the Central Missouri Food Bank, looking for the unpaid folks that keep the place humming.
Just to make sure they didn’t trick me into scrubbing their commodes, I kept my hands shoved deep into my pockets.

Project Pasta

Executive Director Peggy Kirkpatrick graciously ushers me downstairs, intent on introducing me to the early-arriving volunteers. While she browbeats people into talking to me, I check out the huge rectangular room lined with a dozen metal tables that serve as packing stations, manned – or womanned – by up to three volunteers. Sitting on the unremittingly gray concrete floor is an octagonal, corrugated box ? about 4 feet high ? loaded to the gunnels with loose, whole-wheat, spiral pasta. The project this morning is getting all those rotini safely into manageable-size plastic bags. A paper label on the container indicates that it is bursting with 832 pounds of potential dinner.

Vitamins

The first person to succumb to Kirkpatrick’s hectoring is Jim Cretcher, a 10-year Food Bank volunteer. Before retiring in 1993, he was executive secretary of the American Hampshire Sheep Association. He became involved with the CMFB when a friend brought him around to the facility.
“I felt I was called to help out and to help people who are starving to get food,” he says. “I feel I am doing something worthwhile.”
Although he claims to be 82, he looks a decade or two younger. Volunteering must be better than vitamins or yoga.

The Regulars

Cretcher is in the thick of things 3 to 4 hours a day, twice a week. But today is special. The Tuesday Morning Regulars will be here. They are a loose-knit group of friends that have two things in common: They are dedicated, long-term volunteers and they have developed a camaraderie that makes otherwise tedious work seem enjoyable.
Charlie Duikhouse used to work for Wonder Bread back East, but got tired of flying back and forth to visit his children, who had gone to school in the Midwest. “So we thought, we’re retired, we can live anywhere we want, and moved to Columbia,” he says.
At the moment, he is wielding a short, white plastic shovel perforated with quarter-size holes, filling smaller containers full of pasta for the rest of the crew. Shouldn’t he be playing golf instead of working here?
“It’s not work, it’s a pleasure,” he says. “I’m paying back for all the blessings in my life. I’m 70 years old and I want to pay back before my time is up.”

Starbucks, Watch Out

The next person to arrive is Alice Gage, a retired nurse, and the sparkplug of the Regulars. A transplant from Peekskill, N.Y., she has been volunteering at the Food Bank since 1997.
“I suppose the most satisfaction I get working here is helping children and people who need it,” she says. “But it’s also a lot of fun to spend time with my fellow volunteers. That’s why I don’t dare miss a day; the others will talk about me.”
“That’s true,” Cretcher says, laughing.
“We’re all nice to Alice because she makes the coffee,” says Fred David, 68, the third member of the repackaging team
“Coffee ? that’s my job,” Gage says with an exaggerated sigh. “They are all kind enough to say its drinkable. I don’t drink it, I just make it.”
The Regulars work efficiently, bantering all the time. The conversation is mostly about children and grandchildren, with occasional references to mutual acquaintances. Cretcher and David, who is retired from the grocery business, scoop up the spirals and put them in plastic bags. Gage seals the bags and stacks them. The process goes on and on, but the Regulars are too absorbed in their give-and-take to notice the time passing.

The Label Lady

There is one more vital component to this well-oiled machine: Mary Benton, the label lady. She is sitting at a desk nearby, putting self-stick tags on each plastic bag. They describe the product being packaged and its source in case of recall.
A founding member of the Regulars and Gage’s neighbor, Benton volunteers with several organizations around town. Periodically, she drops off the properly marked bags to the packers.

The Nigerian Connection

A table away, Duikhouse is working with Bukola Boboye, who was first introduced to the CMFB volunteer program by a Nigerian group called Egeeoguduwa.
“It’s nice helping the homeless,” she says. “And to know that people who are hungry are being fed. When you need help and you find someone to help you, it’s very consoling.”

Break Time

The morning has flown by, awash in joking and joshing, not to mention hard work. And now it’s time for Gage to do her coffee thing. The rest of the group gives her a head start before climbing the stairs to the main floor for a shot or two of hot caffeine.
The cavernous packing area is suddenly quiet and seems slightly spooky without the murmur of myriad voices and the rustle of plastic bags being filled.
As the gang heads off to sample some of Alice’s legendary brew, a gaggle of schoolchildren comes marching in and huddles around the reception desk. The tour guide recaps what they have already seen, and tells them they are about to visit the boardroom. “You won’t be bored,” he says, laughing. The kids just stare at him, while the accompanying adults titter politely. This is one tough room.
“Does anyone have any questions?” he says, moving on.
Only one hand goes up. A towheaded boy asks the best question of the day, including any of mine. “Are there a lot of mice running around the warehouse eating up all the food?”
Somewhat taken aback, the guide recovers nicely and assures everyone that the food goes out as quickly as it comes in, and doesn’t hang around long enough for Mickey and his pals to get at it. Relieved, the group shuffles off to the promised excitement of the boardroom.

The Mormons Are Coming!

Break over, the Regulars troop downstairs to resume the pasta packing. They quickly get back into the rhythm and are shooting out bag after plastic bag with practiced precision.
“You really ought to stay around,” Cretcher says. “The Mormons are coming.”
I’m expecting a visit from Mitt Romney and his entourage, but it turns out the Latter Day Saints elders are an integral part of the volunteer corps.
“We cheer when they arrive,” Gage says with a smile. “They work hard and we leave them the tough jobs, like breaking up ice.”

Sweet Baby James

A new face appears in the crowd. His name is James (“Like the singer”) Taylor, and he has been employed at CMFB for only two weeks. An imposing man, he could be bouncing drunks at any watering hole in town, but he’s the volunteer room coordinator. “I’m here to ensure food safety and to make sure people get along with each other,” he says.
It doesn’t seem likely that the Tuesday Morning Regulars will descend into a maelstrom of violence, unless Gage burns the coffee, but it’s comforting to know that 29-year-old Taylor is here to prevent food fights and spoilage.
The atmosphere at the CMFB is low-key and collegial. You can sense that these volunteers, bound by their ideals, are here for the greater good. A hand-painted sign near the stairs reads: “We Work For Food.” That’s not quite accurate. They are working to prevent hunger.

If you or your organization would like to make a dramatic impact on the lives of others by volunteering, call 573-474-1020.

The Back Alley to Damascus

Peggy Kirkpatrick is the executive director of the Central Missouri Food Bank. How she got there is a tale of Biblical proportions … in a way. Here’s how it happened:
“I was working at the university as a computer programmer-analyst,” she says. “One thing about MU is that where you work and where you park your car are never close together. So I had about a two-block hike to my building every day. Taking the path of least resistance, I went down an alley behind the fraternity houses and saw homeless people eating out of the dumpsters. Not only that, they were sleeping in them during the wintertime because we didn’t have enough shelters.
“It only took God about 7½ years to get my attention. One day, I said the sorriest prayer ever heard. It went like this: God, this is wrong. You need to do something or send someone. The next thought that came into my mind was ? what about you, Peggy? You’re someone.
“Two months later I was at the Food Bank.”

By the Numbers ? Including Zero

The Central Missouri Food Bank is a formidable operation by any standard. It currently feeds 89,000 people per month in 32 counties. It takes in more than 21 million pounds of food, with a wholesale value of $35.5 million, and distributes it to 145 food pantries, soup kitchens, senior centers, and shelters. It also serves 56 elementary schools. Last year, 12,585 volunteers donated 49,000 hours of their time to help.
A single dollar can normally acquire 20 pounds of food, which means a big bang for the buck: 15 people fed.
The remarkable thing about this organization is that it doesn’t charge anyone anything. Not a red cent, making it only one of five food banks in the country to follow this zero-fee policy.

Buddy Packs

“The Buddy Pack Program is focused on getting nutritious food into children’s homes,” says Peggy Kirkpatrick, executive director of the Central Missouri Food Bank. “There are some kids who have such a difficult home life they don’t get an evening meal, or they don’t get food over the weekend.”
Targeted at elementary school youngsters, each pack contains four basic staples. First: there’s protein. That’s usually peanut butter. This is such an important item that “if we don’t get it donated or through our normal channels, we will go out and buy it,” Kirkpatrick says.
Second: grain products. Granola bars or mini boxes of cereal, or both. Third: a healthy beverage ? juice or shelf-stable milk. Guess which one the kids prefer? And fourth: fruit. Typically, individual servings of applesauce, a universal favorite.
“We also include personal hygiene items, such as toothpaste, toothbrushes and small bars of soap, if we can get them,” Kirkpatrick says. “Anything we give these kids has to be something that doesn’t require refrigeration or kept frozen. Kids from 5 up won’t remember.”
Started four years ago in three schools, this fall there will be 56 schools in 14 counties participating. That means 2,100 kids a week will be Buddy Packed. There are 26 schools on the waiting list.

Deposits And Withdrawals

What is a food bank, anyway? Do they have safety deposit boxes there? How about free checking accounts? Apparently not.
“We are a kind of wholesaler,” says Peggy Kirkpatrick, executive director of the Central Missouri Food Bank. “We bring in food from all over the country and distribute it, free, to 145 agencies, such as soup kitchens, food pantries, senior centers, schools and shelters. To continue the analogy, they are the retail part of the business.”
The CMFB acquires its precious commodities in four ways. First, they come through two national hunger relief organizations, Feeding America and Feed the Children. “Both will go to manufacturers like Pillsbury, Kraft, and Quaker Oats, and tell them: give us your production overruns, give us your quality-control rejects, give us anything you are not going to sell,” she says. “Then they will truck it to food banks around the country, such as ours. But we have to pay the transportation charges, which are around $700,000 a year. ”
Second, the CMFB can go directly to food manufacturers within its 32-county area. Third, it can use cash donations to buy food from wholesalers and brokers. And fourth, the food bank can go the DIY route.
That’s right, since before Labor Day, CMFB volunteers, including church groups, youth groups, university students, and retirees, were hard at work climbing the ladder of successful apple harvesting. Thanks to the generosity of the Huffstutter family and two other orchard owners in New Franklin, boxes of the fruit landed on the doorstep of the Food Bank.
With the economy in turmoil, it is getting more and more difficult to keep up with the demand.
“I was at a Chamber of Commerce meeting recently, and I told them I was running out of corks to put in the dam,” Kirkpatrick says. “I have been here 16 years and I’ve never seen the challenges we are facing today. I’m a dyed-in-the-wool optimist, so I look at it this way: I have a tremendous opportunity every day to believe in God for miracles.
“Look around: there is always someone you can help. That’s what this is all about. That’s why the food bank exists at all. It stands as a testament to God’s providence and the goodness of people.”