The Market
Is the Anti-Hunger Community Broken?
Today I took a little trip to check out a new-to-me neighborhood supermarket concept. The purpose was to sing their praises a little. I had high hopes.
What I’m going to call “The Market” is a hybrid grocery store and free food pantry. I felt this could be important. I ran a pantry myself in my front yard during the pandemic, and I know a lot people who have struggled and lead complicated lives who would benefit from a concept like this. It is owned by a Christian not-for-profit and run by a pastor who was at one time, the manager of a local food bank warehouse. (I will discuss religious/evangelical/Christian pantries another time. It’s complicated). Clark County has also bought into The Market and contributed funds to get them started. There is a commercial kitchen in the space and a plan for cooking home-cooked meals for the community.
Although I have complicated issues with charity and I talk a lot about those issues in my book, this is something to be excited about. Even the smallest well-run, community-focused initiative can move the needle in some way. I wanted to know more and write about it.
The Market is situated on a pretty barren strip of road that has few markets, lots of weekly motels, trailer parks and sits close to the airforce base. Even though we know food deserts don’t actually exist in the way we thought (the only Walmart here closed awhile ago and left a whole lot of nothing in its wake) a market that also gives out free food could be a game changer for people living nearby. Think: a space where people could pick up a hot meal, some free items to supplement, and maybe even cluster around some tables for a lunch, get job information, see and taste at cooking demos, maybe set up ride-share to cover gas, connect people to each other. I mean this felt full of potential. I wondered if it could be replicated downtown where I live. No less than eight people sent me articles and news coverage of it. I went there excited.
The Market itself is small but neat. Very clean, organized. The to-buy portion is about 3/4 of the store. A no frills building with fridge/freezer cases lined around the outside on two walls. It is heavily stocked with canned goods, lots of things in cans, but also milk, a few fresh vegetables, frozen chicken parts, ground meat, all for sale. The staff was friendly and greeted me when I walked in.
The other 1/4 of the shop is designated as the pantry portion of the store. It was pretty sparse but there were still lots of breads and canned goods on offer. I know how stock in pantries can fluctuate, so I knew they could stock this back up quickly. But as soon as I walked in they told me the pantry portion is closed. It was 4pm and the store hours said they were open until 7pm.
This is a chronic problem in the anti-hunger community - that the hours of operation for giving out free foods works for the organization, and not for the people who need food.
What if a person walked in and needed food right then? Do they turn them away? What if they needed to get just pantry food? What if they took an hour bus ride to the shop there and got there and the pantry was closed? I know many people who have high food needs and many are worried about bussing across town only to get to the market and not have access to what they need.
“I haven’t been able to make it because they’re closed when I’m finishing work,” one woman told me.
And this is echoed by other folks. We discussed it online.
“It’s far and I can’t always get a car to go,” another woman says, “so I need to know its worth it if I’m going to make the effort.”
What I hope is that as this market grows into its own they will prioritize their guests over their own convenience. This can be done by hosting off hours on certain days, like: “Tuesdays and Saturdays are open until midnight.” Or scheduling private appointments for people who work odd hours or are coming from miles away.
The pantry communities of the US are plagued with this kind of well-intentioned but still impactful disregard for the people they serve. Volunteer teams have limitations. They may not be trained or prepared for the stressed brains of the very poor - we know poverty stress alters the brain and makes people less thoughtful and highly reactive - their transportation issues, the craziness of job schedules, and the juggling of caretaking and feeding families. Food banks and pantries often passively demand, just by how they are organized, that you to have solid executive functioning and mental health to pull it all together while managing rules and regulations. They expect you to have time to stand in line, wait for what you need. They want you to not care about having a spectrum of choice. They want you to take what is offered and be fucking happy about it.
Grateful. Hashtag blessed.
Pantries and food banks feed people, often they are very good at filling bellies. But they aren’t equipped to do what is really needed - to break down systems of poverty and this is what could make them truly meaningful for a community.
Look at the major food banks in your city or state. They are probably mostly connected to Feeding America, which serves as a kind of Mothership Food Bank to many of them. Check out the board members. Is the board packed with corporate and Big Food elite? Are they people who would lobby for higher minimum wage or unionization? Would a VP from Target or Kelloggs lobby for higher wages? Would their companies spend money pushing poverty initiatives through legislation?
Is the VP at General Mills on the board so that their branded food will get into banks and pantries and set taste preferences in poor communities? I’ve written about how Big Food uses schools to set rates preferences. It happens in banks and pantries too.
During the pandemic, a woman who ran a local pantry, often hosted “Soda Days” where a semi pulled up and offloaded cases and cases of two-litter bottles of Coke and Coke products in her pantry’s driveway. Why does that happen? Big Food wants us to want their stuff. It’s charity. But it’s also marketing. When the poor are able to move out of poverty (most poverty is transient) what will they want to consume? It is a complicated and fucked up relationship.
This lady is forever “The Coke Lady” in my head.
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“We went last Thursday, we got canned fruit and canned veggies,” a woman told me about The Market. “You get two cans of fruit, two cans of veggies, rice or powdered mashed potatoes.”
In the end, she walked out with two small packs of ground beef, a small bag of pancake mix, a bunch of bread and a small case of soda.
“The milk they were giving away was free from the pantry,” she said “because it was past due that day. But it came from the paid side of the store.”
“My friend went last week and said they have canned fruit and veggies, ground chicken, some boxed pastas and lots of bread, one woman chimed in, “and got a gallon of milk but it was spoiled."
This begs a kind of operational question: Is the food on the paid side donated or purchased and if so from where? Do they get donations and they go right to the pantry or are they selling donated foods first and then transferring to the pantry as they age? Are they allowed to sell donated foods and what are the issues and ethics around that? I did see commodity chicken parts in the paid freezer section and wondered about how they organize this new hybrid concept. Or maybe they were for the pantry and simply stored there? I’d be super interested in their process.
This kind of not-profit business is tricky to run. Lots and lots of moving parts. With the over-arching idea that The Market shouldn’t feel like a pantry.
And yet it still does.
“My only suggestion per the Manager was that they don't want people to get there when they open on Fridays! They had a long line last Friday!” said a woman, who overall had a great experience at the store.
“They don't want people in line standing in the heat! Go later in the afternoon on Fridays so you don't have to stand in line! They only let so many people in the store at a time. Either pick a different day of the week or go later on Fridays!”
One of the things The Market will have to do, if it is going to get a hold in the community, is represent consistency and build trust. It is so important to vulnerable communities that if they depend on something, it be there. The minute things are in-stock sometimes and sometimes not, or the pantry closes early some days or unpredictably, or they don’t have accessible hours, or they don’t carry product people need and want (they do not provide baby formula or diapers right now, for instance, which has been discussed online) people will give up on it. This community is used to having good things peter out. They are used to losing and struggling.
Right now, The Market, is a supplement. A way to get some things you need for cheap or free to supplement your grocery shopping.
“Not much for produce, no meat, very small amount of dairy,” one woman told me.
And then a woman writes. And it just stops me.
“…but to me the grocery store (she is talking about The Market) was more expensive than going to Walmart, their milk was two for $5 and I can get milk at Walmart for $209 or $239 a gallon, even chocolate milk, my grandson likes fruit loops which I pay like $4 for it Walmart, they wanted $7, there the meats were like very expensive too I wanted some chicken drumsticks and they wanted like 12 bucks for them so I went to El Supra and got them for like $4… but to me it was too expensive and the guy said that's because Walmart's such a big store and they can get stuff cheaper. I don't understand that cuz I thought it was supposed to be a cheaper price for us to pay then going to the stores but I'm still grateful for whatever I get for free, the pantry is definitely worth it, to go and check it out but I would go earlier in the day cuz towards the end of the day there might not be much left enjoy.”
This is the ugly reality of supermarkets that The Market can’t ignore - it’s a low margin/ hyper-competitive business model. Supermarkets make money by turning over a lot of product. Even dollar stores, gas stations, convenience stores and universal free school lunch can up-end their delicate balance of making profits.
The Market can only survive, and serve its people, I fear, by upselling groceries at higher prices, or through county subsidies, or by selling donated branded food. How does that work for the poorest among us?
I worry this won’t work.
I hope to hell I’m wrong.
I want everyone to have a market they can afford with all kinds of fresh, beautiful choices, even if all they all they choose is name brand Fruity Pebbles and Pop Tarts. Having equity is about having choice. If you are forced to “take two off of each shelf” it’s not equity. How many middle class people reading this newsletter only get to choose “two ”off the grocery shelves? How long would you put up with that bullshit?
You wouldn't. Because you don’t have to. People deep into poverty have to.
Anything less than full choice, fresh foods and full access is still poverty.
Not that this rests on the shoulders of the people who run The Market. They aren’t responsible for hunger or scarcity. It is systemic and above their pay grade. The Market and all the other Markets across the country are well-intentioned, and important band-aids on systems and bureaucracies that don’t want to do the bigger work of eviscerating poverty. (See this run-down of Matthew Desmond’s suggestions for abolishing poverty).
At best this pantry/market could grow and serve as a community food hub. Consider Katie S. Martin’s excellent book, “Reinventing Food Banks and Pantries: New Tools to End Hunger.” She is the Executive Director of the Foodshare Institute for Hunger and Research + Solutions. Her take is inspiring and exciting.
‘The goal is to provide both healthy food to those in need and wrap around services so people won’t need to use the pantry long-term. Over time, we want to create community food hubs as anchor organizations that are open several days a week with some evening and weekend hours and staffed with full-time employees paid living wages with benefits. These food hubs will offer healthy food, inclusive fresh produce, along with nutritional education and health promotion, to help reduce health disparities.
These holistic food hubs will have resource centres to provide services beyond food.Trained coaches will offer wrap around services, helping guests enrolled in federal food assistance programs and community programs to address root causes of hunger. They will provide a welcomgin and empowering space for guests that is not stigmatising. They will be designed as one-stop shopping sites where community organisations come to describe services, enrolling people in programs, and offer-classes on site. Food hubs will serve as community spaces where guests can advocate for bigger systems and policy changes, raise their voices about their experience with food insecurity, and help develop long-term solutions.”
This is the dream. Supported by state, local and federal governments as one of the ways we can raise people up. It’s not about this Market or any of The Markets. These are people who have lived in these communities, know poverty innately, and they have rolled up their sleeves and gone to work, despite being underfunded and under supported, they are standing in the gap while the policy makers pretend there aren’t hungry people in the US. They are making something happen with nothing or very little, three sticks, a button and a roll of tape.
And it isn’t good enough.
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On my way out, I told the staff person about the 100 Dinners program we did during the pandemic (free home cooked dinners, refrigerated and ready to reheat in your home). I asked if they might be interested in free meals for their pantry once a month or so. They could give them away to their customers as they chose.
The staff person was very clear. They weren't looking for help.
In the car, I thought about something I hadn’t thought about in a long time. Our pantry was closed down by the city after a year of running it like a grocery store in our front yard. Totally illegal shit.
Turns out, it was The Coke Lady who turned us in to the city.
Sometimes the anti-hunger crowd works against themselves. Maybe this is our biggest challenge.
