Driving into my parking lot, I waved at Yuki Holand from the Food Bank. I thought “she was a great story I missed. “ Holand turns donated Food Bank foods into a fantastic lunch for volunteers three times a week. She is a lovely and powerful personality.
Next, I thought of programs for the developmentally disabled which have always played a big role at the Food Bank. What’s happening with that sector of the community?
We write about the Food Bank every week of the holiday season of every year. Yet there are always stories. A very famous quote (author unknown) is “behind every person is a great story.”
When I went to Humboldt State University for journalism in the 1980s a professor said a reporter is someone who can find those stories. It made it very hard for young reporters to do what they always do- come back and say “there was nothing there.”
There is a lot of something to be found for a writer inside the Food Bank. The issues of poverty, nutrition, the growing gap between rich and poor, recovery, rebuilding, senior citizens and homelessness can be found in living, breathing forms there.
Our publisher picked the Season of Sharing as the main charitable effort of our community newspaper, meaning the real reason for my writing about it every week is to raise money. Others might see a conflict in that, but I don’t.
As the journalist assigned to write about the Food Bank, I have never been given orders from on high to make the Food Bank look good. Instead, I have set out each year to make this non-profit look, feel and taste real to the reader.
At a time when other major community institutions are failing, is this tell-all approach really the best idea?
Would it be better for us to simply beg readers for money, rather than tell them the good, bad and ugly that I see every week?
Personalizing a fundraising pitch using friends and neighbors I meet there is likely to be more interesting to readers than simply asking for money. But even that is subjective.
I could ignore every unsavory character and write only about the numerous upstanding mass of elderly people I run into every week.
“I ….found that our typical senior client’s income is between $700 and $900 a month.
Think about that for a minute. That doesn’t go very far,” Severy told me.
My instinct is that I should tell as much of the story as I possibly can. The truth will prevail even if its uglier than a polished pitch. For that reason I won’t leave out the mentally ill homeless who are served. In the end, despite our failings, telling the truth to the best of our ability is the triumph of newspapers, which doesn’t seem to be the case so far with newer media formats.
However, the online world does present some great stuff about the Food Bank. A whole cadre of financial and organizational documents are posted on their website. I won’t say I can tell the ‘whole story” of even something as small as the Food Bank because that simply isn’t possible on this side of the veil. What I chose to tell is colored by my own background, mortal biases and even personal appearance. Certain people never make it into the paper because of subconscious biases in me, or because they don’t want to talk to a gigantic white dude for their own reasons.
Plus, if I just wrote a series in order to raise money and didn’t look in every corner and talk to everybody possible, I couldn’t be sure about the fundraising. Now that I do know, if readers aren’t giving this year, it must be because I’m not giving you enough of what I have been seeing.
This is much more than a story about a non-profit that knows how to both stretch the money and provide the services. I’m struggling a little on how to explain the mystical bang you will get for your bucks in contributions.
I think of the Biblical miracle of the endless loaves and fishes when I see more goodwill coming out than going in. I asked Severy to help me explain what I mean, as she seems
to be able to put it into words.
“The whole community has the right to feel proud of our food bank. Approximately half our cash budget comes from local donations large and small, as well as many tons of donated food annually. Somehow this has so much more meaning than the proverbial ‘government hand out’ . Not a day passes that several people don’t show up at the Food Bank door with a bag of groceries (obviously thoughtfully chosen), recycled grocery bags, hand-knitted caps, a bag of apples or a check. The giving of these donations is a deeply personal exchange,” Severy said.
At a time when our society and earth are in awful declines, this “deeply personal exchange” is where the power lurks. Spending your money this way is much, much better than spending on stuff, better even than barter. Donations to the Food Bank provide life at several levels, for food that would have been thrown away, blessings for the receiver and keeping retired and neglected poor people from feeling like they have been thrown away.
“We also have depended greatly on local private donations and so far our wonderful community has seen us through. We just hope that the bottom-line nature of our service to the community continues to be recognized. The Food Bank is where people go when it all comes crashing down and other safety nets disappear.” Despite all this, I still can’t bear to use the sales pitch for fundraising, to lay on a thick guilt trip or to make the situation look as dire as other, larger community institutions.
To seek money this way would be to miss the whole point, to deny the giver the flow of grace that comes from free giving and receiving.
But I do need to state the facts as I have found them. “We greatly need the continued support of the community. The recession brought a big jump in the number of clients who come to us for help. It doesn’t look like we’re likely to return to pre-recession levels anytime soon, if ever. We need to keep finding enough food to fill the weekly food bags that sustain our clients.” Severy said. Having gathered all the facts I could, I don’t feel it compromises me as a neutral reporter to suggest that you do give what you can, despite all the others needing money. I’ve found an organization that has a talent in squeezing pennies and a culture of human magic.
This year’s donors who gave a total of $6,951: Ben and Nancy Housel, Winston and Rebecca Bowen, In memory of Fred and Nonie Grass, Ronald and Susan Munson, Deborah Smith, David and Laura Welter, Mendocino Coast Gem and Mineral Society, Barbara Prichard, Marion Nelson, Patricia Sinkay, J. I. Gertler, Alice Einhorn, Janice and Stephen Walker, Forest and Patricia Tilley, Tom and Julee Estes, Janice Boyd, In memory of Olivia, Emma and Claire, Cindy and James Ellis, Mel and Susan McKinney, Myra Beals, Mary Kay and Boyd Hight, Jeanette Hansen, Bruce and Roslyn Moore, Barbara Barkovich, Margaret and Karl Kramp for Jim and Sharon MiMauro, Deborah L. and David Holmer, Bruce and Karen Smith, Francis Many, Craig Blencowe, Susan Fullbright, In memory of Jean Lee, Kit and Sandi Mosden, Edwin and Theresa Branscomb, Susan Larkin and James Ehlers, C. Q. Arbogast, Ph.D., Sharman Braff, James and Jeanette Boyer and three anonymous donors.
