“What if the healing of the world utterly de-pends on the ten-thousand invisible kind-nesses we offer simply and quietly throughout the pilgrimage of each human life?” Wayne Muller

I realized early into my conversation with 24-year-old Miranda that even though she wanted to share her story for this newsletter, it was the time to put the pen down and stop taking notes. Some stories are simply too painful to pass on and Miranda’s was one of them. Tears welled up in her eyes she shared the extreme hardships she had endured as a child, her struggle through recovery and her ongoing journey out of the emotional pain she carries. I met Miranda several weeks ago as she waited in our lobby before we opened the food bank and found her to be a beautiful young woman, soft spoken and trusting, and mother of two energetic and happy children. Miranda’s husband Tony lights up when he talks about her. ‚I love my wife…I was really blessed when I met Miranda.‛
Their personal struggle began in earnest several months ago after Tony lost his job. Suddenly they found themselves homeless, looking for work, and struggling to keep a roof over their heads. Hardship was not new to this couple. ‚I grew up in a family infused with alcoholism, and struggled with my own addition since I was fifteen‛, Tony shares with me. ‚I am in my fifth year of recovery and it will be something that I always deal with and I know the longer I stay sober the better.‛ Like any father, Tony wants the best for his family. ‚There’s been a lot of ups and downs…we’ve been through a lot together. My hope is to rise above these challenges and raise my family. That’s what I want.‛ I wondered what it feels like to be a husband and father of young children and face homelessness. Tony shared that his greatest fear is, ‚to make sure my family is taken care of…I was worried that we would be split apart. ‚ He shares that, ‚The hardest part is the powerlessness that you can feel. But I try not to focus on the fact that I am homeless. Instead, I do my best to move forward. Everyday I tell myself, ‘I can make it. I will make it.’ I live for today and not what has happened behind me.‛
Tony is actively seeking work as a painter, but his real dream is to save enough money to go to school and obtain his Commercial Driver’s License so that he can provide for his family as a truck driver. Until that time, Tony volunteers at the Bremerton Foodline and whether he is assisting clients or unloading donations, he doesn’t shy away from hard work. ‚I love coming here. I love giving back to this community.‛ It’s precisely this community spirit that keeps he and Miranda coming back to help others even as they themselves are struggling to get back on their feet. In fact, as we were getting ready to distribute thanksgiving food boxes yesterday, Miranda came down and said, ‚I had to come here today and help!‛
Reflecting on his family, Tony offers a hopeful perspective as he and Miranda move forward. ‚When the light dims and we don’t see the whole picture…that’s when the miracles happen. And no matter what happens, my foundation will not be moved.‛
A TINY SPECK OF LIGHT – CLIENT PROFILE

“What if the healing of the world utterly de-pends on the ten-thousand invisible kind-nesses we offer simply and quietly throughout the pilgrimage of each human life?” Wayne Muller

“Lee” (not her real name) has been in hiding for three years now. A woman of faith and commitment, she does not see herself as courageous or strong. Instead, she proudly refers to herself as “the leader of my clan”, which includes three children of her own, three grandchildren, and her son-in-law who just deployed with the 81st Brigade.
Ten years ago, she met a man who, like herself, was a single parent . When they married, he faithfully attended church, owned his own business, while she continued her full-time job as a Certified Nursing Assistant. Life was good. Nine months into their marriage, however, life began to dramatically change. Returning late one day from the grocery store, she was threatened, “next time you say you’ll be here at a certain time, you need to be here!” She was fifteen minutes late. Lee was taken aback, but she believed in commitment and was determined to try harder. A few months later she visited her sister who lived nearby, and left a note that she would come home soon. When she returned a short while later, he was livid. She tried to console him, but he backhanded her so hard that she was thrown across the room and landed on a table. Lee was pregnant. A long cycle of domestic violence began.
She knew her husband was a Vietnam vet and suffered from night sweats and horrible dreams…so she decided to stay even though his emotional grip on her life tightened. “The kids must be perfect, the meals must be perfect, the house must be perfect.” Nothing was never enough. When he hit her again, she said she was leaving until he agreed to be admitted for inpatient psychiatric care. After he was released from the hospital, she took him back. Her outlook on life was, “if the cup is half-full, don’t give up!” Looking back, one of the saddest days she faced was in marriage counseling. After her husband vehemently denied her description of the abuse, one of the pastors turned to her and said, “Maybe you should not talk to your husband that way.”
Lee lived through several more years of violence, until she finally left for good. Determined to be finally free, she turned to the YWCA (another amazing agency), and they proceeded to help her in every community across several states until she arrived in Kitsap County, where she began her new life.
Lee has never relied on public assistance but she turned to the Bremerton Foodline early last Fall, when her paycheck did not cover her expenses and she needed help with food. She called us again just before Christmas to see if she could receive assistance getting presents for her younger children and grandchildren. “Coincidentally”, an hour later, a woman called and asked if there was a family that might want some help with gifts. “As a matter of fact…I do!” The match was made. She says her son knows, “Santa brought his presents to the Bremerton Food-line.”
Two months ago, when Lee realized that her husband tracked her down to this area, she panicked. Terrified, Lee took leave from her job, left her home and decided to go camping and hide with her family. Putting on a brave face for the young kids, she made it seem like a great family adventure instead of the stressful experience that it was. To help out, we filled her coolers with all the camping supplies we could find and connected her with our wonderful partners at Kitsap Community Resources, who assisted Lee find safe transitional housing. Now back at work, Lee is regaining her footing as she figures out her next steps. Amazingly after all this, Lee still looks to her future with confidence, hope and that same “if the cup is half full, don’t give up!” attitude.
What wisdom would she pass onto others in similar circumstances? “Believe in yourself, and don’t let anyone take away the goodness of you.” And when I asked her, “What has the Bremerton Foodline meant to you?”, she responded with conviction: “You have no idea…I was in a dark tunnel…a tunnel so dark, I couldn’t even see the walls. There were five corridors each pointing to a different direction and I didn’t know which way to turn. Then way off in the distance, there was a tiny speck of light…and I walked toward it.. It was the Bremerton Foodline.”

SUSTAINED BYTHE KINDNESS OF STRANGERS – CLIENT PROFILE

“What if the healing of the world utterly de-pends on the ten-thousand invisible kind-nesses we offer simply and quietly throughout the pilgrimage of each human life?” Wayne Muller

A year ago, a young woman in her late 20’s entered my office with two beautiful young children on her arm. As I came to know Kristin, I learned that she is working full time, struggling to get by, and trying extremely hard to be a good mother to her children. Kristin is the type of person you just want to succeed—to break through the barriers of her economic circumstances—and finally thrive.
Looking back on her childhood in California, Kristin felt as if she lived in two separate worlds: one was wonderful and the other intolerable. She remembers her grandfather to be a very positive presence in her life, while her mother was abusive. By the age of 13, Kristin became rebellious and placed in the juvenile system. At 15, she ran away from home. She was eventually placed into a loving foster home, but all too soon, Kristin aged out of the foster system, and found herself on her own with nowhere to go and no life skills.
As the years went by, Kristin gave birth to three children…”alone”. Though she wanted to work, she was unable to get a job because she couldn’t afford day care. In order to survive in this high-cost of living area, she would walk down to the corner grocer each morning to panhandle…with her kids in a stroller. On good days, she would raise enough money to stay in a motel for the night and buy a little food or maybe some diapers. But on the bad days, Kristin remembers going without eating in order to buy Tylenol for her sick children.
Despite her difficulties, Kristin is someone who has an eye for the goodness in others. In fact, “it was other people’s kindness that kept me alive for a whole year,” she shares. And indeed there were many unexpected kindnesses along the way. Amazingly, one woman even approached her and said, “You look like you need a break”, and then proceeded to take Kristin and her children to Disneyland, treating them to a wonderful day, souvenirs and all.
A few months later, when Kristin decided she needed to move closer to family in Bremerton, another compassionate woman at the Greyhound station found a way to charge her only $100 for bus tickets she needed for herself and her kids. Not coincidentally, this was all the money she had in the world. When she arrived on the last ferry to Bainbridge Island with no where to go, someone saw her situation and offered her a place to stay for the night, and a ride to Bremerton the next day. As she drove on Hwy 3 toward Bremerton, Kristin remembers a bald eagle swooped down and nearly hit the windshield. She was amazed at the eagle’s immense wingspan and in that moment felt it was a sign that things would get better.
And little by little they did. Kristin eventually connected with Kitsap Community Resources who helped her find suitable day care. Within weeks she found a job. Life was hectic juggling work and children on her own, but she says, “the stress of everything was way better than being homeless.” On a particularly difficult day, a Kitsap Transit bus driver handed her a note card that said, “Smile”, and once again she felt incredibly touched by the generosity of a stranger.
Thanks to your support, the Bremerton Foodline has been a place for Kristin to not only to receive food assistance and the occasional help with gas, but also a place of warmth, acceptance, and kindness. “This is the most non-judgmental place I’ve ever been.” Smile.

IN OUR OWN BACKYARD…LOURDE’S JOURNEY THROUGH HOMELESSNESS

“What if the healing of the world utterly de-pends on the ten-thousand invisible kind-nesses we offer simply and quietly throughout the pilgrimage of each human life?” Wayne Muller

Lourdes, or “Lou” as everyone calls her, seems touched that we wanted to share her story in this newsletter. “No one has ever asked me this before.” When I met her this past Thanksgiving, Lou was living in her van, her hair disheveled…her spirit downcast. The Bremerton Foodline put her up for a couple of nights at a local motel so she could get a decent night’s sleep and a shower. The next day, it was like I was meeting a new person. A brightness in Lou’s eyes had returned…and her generosity shined as she stepped in to give us a hand serving our other clients.
Lou’s journey through homeless has it’s roots in domestic abuse and the ensuing credit and legal problems that followed. But Lou reminds me that she was not always in this situation. Her family emigrated from Guam in the early 70’s to California. One of twelve children, she moved in with her mother in a small 2-bedroom apartment in LA. “I grew up with no love because there were too many of us. My father was a drunk. I watched the abuse,” she shares. The violence and living situation that surrounded her neighborhood compelled her to join her sister and move to Washington. At the time she had three young children of her own to take care of and $30 in her pocket. Her children, now grown, are the light of her life. She is incredibly proud that all three are serving in the US Army as officers, two of them overseas. Like many parents, Lou emphasized doing well in school, holding her kids accountable, and getting good grades. “I knew that nothing was going to be given to them…they would have to earn it.” And they have.
The downturn in her life began in the early 90’s when she became involved with a partner that was emotionally abusive and manipulative. “I was blinded by love,” she says. After a period of many years, her credit and good record eroded along with her self esteem. She explains that she defended herself in a domestic violence situation that resulted in a charge and plea bargain against her. In the ensuing months, Lou lost her home, and although she had a modest source of income, she was unable to find housing because her record now meant, “she was a threat”. Lou’s pride would not allow her to let her kids help because, “she doesn’t want them to be embarrassed.” So moved into the only shelter she had…her car..which she jokingly tells me, “was held together with duct tape!”
When asked why most people she knew become homeless, she shares that, “no one wants to be homeless. Who would want to? It has got to be something drastic that happens in their life like getting fired, leaving abusive situations, running from the law, or poor credit…And once you are homeless it’s very hard to get back into the system.” Looking back, Lou says the hardest part of being homeless is the shame you feel when you steal apples from someone’s tree just to eat, drink water from fountains, or use public facilities to stay clean. “The streets are hard…It’s cold…and it’s hard to find people who are compassionate.”
The Bremerton Foodline has been that place of compassion for Lou…a safe haven. She describes our agency as, “a comfortable place for people to come with no prejudice.” Lou also wants you to know that she is deeply grateful to the other “Angels of Humanity” as she calls us, who helped her in recent months including the Director of St. Vincent de Paul, Denise Agee.
Lou tells me many times, “I am a fighter.” And with deep pride, not to mention an amazing coincidence, she stopped by shortly after we talked to let me know that she has finally found a new home. With deposit assistance from our agency, Lou moved in a couple of weeks ago, renting from another one of her proclaimed “Angels” who was willing to give her a second chance. She has nothing but a few blankets to fill her rooms, but it’s a new beginning…one that she deserves…one that she has waited a long time for!

Happy New Years!

Happy Holidays

Happy Thanksgiving from the Executive Director

February…A month of highlights and challenges

Opening A Door

Dare to Hope

A Balancing Act

What You Have to Give is Enough

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Happy New Year!
Before we get too involved in 2010 I wanted to take a minutes to thank all of you for your support of the Bremerton Foodline. Over the two holidays we provided over 1600 holiday baskets to families in need. We did this through the help of a whole lot of people! We would never have been able to help so many people without the volunteers who came forward to help us sort food, prepare the baskets, escort families through the lines and to their cars, and cleaning up after the distribution.
On behalf of the Board of Directors and our faithful staff, thank you. Have a wonderful New Year.
Kathy Thayer, Executive Director

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Happy Holidays

The Bremerton Foodline is gearing up for our Christmas basket preparation.  Donations are coming in from many different sources.  Kitsap County employees did a can food drive creating structures out of their donations.  Keyport is collecting donations which soon will be arriving.  Walgreens on Kitsap Way dropped off a large donation of sweet treats just today.  Churches, individuals, Parametrix, Teletech, Alexander’s Golf Shop and many other businesses are all participating in food drives on our behalf.

The Bremerton Key Club is donating stuffed animals and the Kitsap Youth in Action were here helping us prepare.  On Saturday we’ll be assembling our food “baskets” with the help of many volunteers in the community, including members of the Henry M. Jackson.  On Sunday, Monday and Tuesday we’ll start to hand out those baskets to families for their holiday meals.

This time of year truly shows us how much support there is for families in our community.  Everyone cares and wants to help.  To all of you who have sent in food or cash donations, I thank you for your support.  Bremerton is a great place to live.

Kathy Thayer, Exective Director, Bremerton Foodline

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Happy Thanksgiving from the New  Executive Director

It’s been a whirlwind month for me here at the Bremerton Foodline.  What a unique time of the year to begin a new job.  I have learned so much in the last few weeks with the help of board members and a wonderful, supportive staff.  It’s been unbelievably busy getting ready for the holidays, learning new things, meeting so many new people, and just trying to get a handle on how everything works.

The Thanksgiving holiday is quickly approaching, only just a few days away!  I have witnessed a well orchestrated group of individuals come together to weigh and sort food donations, pack boxes with food, load trucks, move boxes, and clean up a warehouse to be ready for the days of distribution.  It was quite impressive to see it all happen and I realized how lucky I am to be working here.  We will be serving over 900 people, providing them with all of the essentials needed to make their Thanksgiving a happier one.

On behalf of the Bremerton Foodline staff, the board of directors, and myself, I wish to thank the community as a whole for coming to our rescue this year to provide us with canned goods, turkeys, funds to purchase needed items, and their time volunteering.  The generosity of the community has been flowing through our doors….what a fantastic time to start a new career!

Happy Thanksgiving to all of you!

Kathy Thayer

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February…A month of highlights and challenges

It typically slows down in February at food banks.  We think it is due to the much needed energy assistance making its way to our families freeing up cash for life’s other necessities, including food.  We know that anyone who comes to the foodbank would rather provide for their family by going to the corner grocery store….wouldn’t we all? That being said, our agency served 1,177 food boxes last month to families residing within the Bremerton School District boundaries, which represents a 24% growth compared to February 2008.  And it’s not just the Bremerton Foodline.  Foodbanks across Kitsap County are serving record numbers…many of whom have never imagined they would ever cross the threshold of a food bank for something other than bringing in a donation. At times it feels like we stand in front of a swell of need that is turning into a tidal wave.

Yes…there are challenges.  I hear of families that are taking in relatives and friends…so much so that there is barely room to sleep on their floor.  We are turning folks away on a daily basis who ask for help with gas to get to work, or a little help making a rent payment that month.  While we may turn folks away for financial assistance, we never ever turn anyone away who asks for help with food.  This is the core of our mission…and we take extreme pride in staying in front of that need.

February was a great month in many respects and it’s good to remind ourselves of the good things that our happening in our community.  For example, the  East Bremerton Albertson’s launched a grocery rescue partnership with us that is now contributing hundreds of pounds of meat, dairy, deli and produce products every week.  Seaside Church volunteers now staff our Last Saturday of the month service, which is getting some traction as more folks hear about it.  We hope this will grow into a long-term resource for folks in the community who cannot reach assistance during the week.   Thankfully, our donation support continues to remain strong and we remain in solid financial position to continue  stocking food bank shelves and serve this community as the dimension of the need continues to change.  And perhaps, most importantly, our wonderful volunteers show up every day, doing the behind the scenes work that keeps this agency humming. So…despite what the news may bring…we will still be here, doing our best to do whatever we can to make lives a little easier for folks.   We could not do this without your continued help and support.  You make our work possible…and as always, you have our deepest gratitude!
Executive Director Monica Bernhard

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Opening A Door

A woman named Lucy helped us out on a volunteer basis several weeks back, while she was in the process of looking for work.  I came to learn that she was living in her car…in January.  Still, her spirit was strong and she always showed up with a huge smile on her face, ready to lend a hand to her neighbors.  She said something to me I think I shall never forget.  Once married and living in a home of her own, Lucy shared, “I took for granted just being able to turn a door knob and walk into your own home.”  How true that is.  Thankfully, a week later she found a job, working graveyard shift as a Certified Nursing Assistance.  The hours weren’t ideal.  But it was a job…and perhaps it was a step towards once again “opening a new door” in her life.

Dare to Hope

A woman came into our agency a couple of weeks ago…in her 40’s…married and mother of two…and in tears. “I’ve tried everything”, she said. “I’m a college graduate…I can’t find a job…I’ll do anything. My husband works, but it takes three weeks of his income just to pay the rent. I know we came in for a basket a couple of weeks ago, but we have no food…We’re so hungry”. Here was a woman, willing to work and unable to find anything …struggling to get by and feed her family. To each and every one of you in this room, I say: This is why we are here.

How do you continue to hope, when everything in life says quit? In a world with increasing poverty, unemployment, homelessness, looming recessions and hungry children, it would be very easy to be cynical…to cast blame on the politicians of either party…to assume that things will never change. But deep down inside, we are all here because we are a people of hope…we want to help…we recognize our blessings and want to share that with others. We have a need to know that lives improve…that kids are safe, that there is enough housing, enough food, and most importantly enough love to go around. Even when there isn’t. For me, my inspiration comes from the people we serve. Day in and day out, they inspire me to hope…they inspire me to believe in the strength of the human spirit….they inspire me to get up and show up one more day and try again. But there are days, believe you me, when coming back in and trying again is not easy.

How do you continue to hope, when everything in life says quit? A man in his 60’s came into my office and told me that he had tried to end his life. …several times. “What was the point?, No one cares about me. I have no one. I am so lonely.” But I knew he did not want to die…he just wanted what we all want…someone to love…someone who cared if he came back at the end of the day. So he comes down to the Bremerton Foodline…sometimes for food, sometimes for a smile…but mostly, I believe, because he knows that we care…and when he is feeling a bit unsteady, we help him restore his sense of hope.

How do you continue to hope, when everything in life says quit? A woman in her late 40’s, diagnosed with stage 4 cancer, and undergoing round after round of chemotherapy and radiation, stops by and asks me an agonizing question… “Monica, what have I done wrong? Why is God punishing me? I’ve tried to be a good person, I don’t want to die….I don’t want to die.” We sit for a while…holding each others hands…I remind her that we are all standing with her. After a hug, DeMorris takes her back for a few bags of fresh produce.…and she sees a few friendly faces.. Linda became one of my dearest friends at the agency She died from complications from breast cancer a few weeks ago.

How do you continue to hope? Continue to hope when your electricity bill is $40 in the middle of winter because you never turn the heat on? Continue to hope when you have to turn to your kid’s piggybank in order to get $7.88 in gas money to get to the doctor? Continue to hope when you pay off one garnishment and are faced with surmounting medical bills. Continue to hope no one has funds to help pay the rent and you are facing eviction with young children. The answer to that is I don’t know…I don’t know how some folks can get up day after day after day, when everything in their life says quit. But they do it…they do it. They do it, because they “Dare to hope”. They dare to hope because the alternative is giving up.

There is a risk in choosing to hope. It is far easier to live life bitter…to be cynical. After all, what if things never get better? Why continue to believe when time after time, our dreams are dashed. Martin Luther King said, “If you lose hope, somehow you lose the vitality that keeps life moving, you lose that courage to be, that quality that helps you go on in spite of it all.”

In my role, it’s easy to be discouraged…in fact, I am not sure how I could do this…face this day in and day out if I did not live from a stance of hope. Hope is not some idealistic dream divorced from reality…hope is the lifeblood of life itself. Hope is grounded in the deep sense that life is good…that good things do happen…that people are worthy of our time and love. We must believe…continue to believe.. even when the world throws reasons at us to quit. We must hold on to our compassion …we must hold onto the promise of hope.

When I first started working at the Bremerton Foodline, I was filled with a sense of untested hope-filled idealism. I knew I had little experience in facing head on the struggles that so many face first hand, living with poverty. I believed the best in people…I chose to trust them…to look beyond and through their stories. Because deep down inside, I knew that good things will happen…people will be helped…problems will be solved.

It took two months before that would be truly tested…two months before I realized that for so many, hope isn’t about wishful thinking or blind idealism. One day in December of 2006, I was approached by two women. The first woman, a single mother of five kids ranging from five to 18 including a child with special needs, was facing imminent eviction. She asked…pleaded…if there was anything we could do to help? Coming up with $50 or a $100 might have been possible, but she needed close to $800 to cover back rent…and that kinds of money was no where to be found. The second woman, was also a single mother or two young children. She was going back to school to train as a nursing assistant, but was completely out of money. She had missed several days of work when her youngest child got sick…now she faced a prospect of losing her job and only source of income, as well as her home. Just days before Christmas, both woman faced eviction…with children…and no where to turn. I called around and connected the second woman with one of our board members who worked with her landlord to extend her terms, and thankfully she was able to remain in her home. There were no such options for the first woman and days before Christmas, all of her belongings were cleared out of her apartment and left next to the sidewalk. A tale of two woman…one we helped stay in her home for Christmas and the other was on the streets.

I was devastated…what happened to my idealism…my belief that good things happen? It took me a while and a great many tears before I realized that it was not about me. Each of us do what we can, day in and day out…but at the same time, the individuals we serve bring their lives, with all their complexity…and challenges that are not ours to solve. We can only do our part…To offer up what is ours to give. Food, where families are hungry…compassion where there is pain and suffering…and hope when there is despair.

As staff and volunteers, we realize that food is just part of the hunger that many people face. So many also carry a hunger for love…a hunger for healing of traumas from their past …a hunger for friendship….a hunger for validation…a hunger for peace for once in their life…a hunger for hope. They hunger for someone to see the tragedy of what happened to them a lifetime ago and tell them it was wrong. They hunger for someone to believe in their possibilities even when they can’t. They hunger for someone to hear their story and find the beauty in it…see the hand of God in their journey …hold it all and say yes.

Several weeks ago, a woman I see often stopped by in the morning before work. She is a drug-addict and a new grandmother, and in spite of all the darkness she faces day in and day out, she lights up when I ask about her grandchild. As she left…I got up to give her a hug. She stopped me and said, you don’t want to hug me…I’m so dirty, I’ve been going through dumpsters, I’m filthy. Of course I want to hug you…of course I do.

That is what we all do here at the Bremerton Foodline. Whether you are working in the repacking room, the front desk, running orders, stocking shelves, donating funds, working in the warehouse…we are all about offering hope. Susan, our office manager, offers hope with each food stamps application, with each story she listens to…Tim, our driver, offers hope with each barrel of food, each rack of bread, each bin of produce that he picks up…and Rachel, our supervisor, offers hope with each volunteer she mentors, each client she serves, each shelve she stocks with food.

Albert Einstein once said, “there are only two ways to live your life: One as if nothing is a miracle, the other is as if everything is. “ My friends, you are part of the miracle that I know as the Bremerton Foodline. If you sit here today, then you have seen first hand the struggle that so many people face in our community…you see how some succeed, while others fail. You see how some try and pick them selves up again and again, and wonder how you would do if you were in the same circumstances.

Our mission at the Bremerton Foodline is to serve people who are hungry in our community. And since the beginning of this year, we have served more than 11,000 food boxes to families in need. To those in the repackaging room…that’s a lot of rice! Perhaps just as important as our mission to serve food is our unspoken mission to be bearers of hope. So I challenge each and everyone one of us right now: Let us be people who dare to be hurt, Dare to be disappointed…Dare to be wrong…Let us also be a people who dare to believe in the people we serve…dare to love those who stand beside us. …dare to have faith in the goodness of life. Let us Dare to Hope!

A Balancing Act

Anyone who is familiar with foodbanks will realize that we are utterly dependent upon the support of our community.  Our agency serves approximately 1,350 households every month and it is indeed a balancing act to keep a variety of quality products available to our clients.  We are continually faced with difficult choices:  Do we spend our money on protien rich meat sources or canned fruits and vegetables?  Can we afford to buy butter or milk?  Cereal or box dinners?  And what about toilet paper or diapers?  Our everyday challenge here is to maximize the donations from our partners and the community and supplement that food supply with staples that are funded by donations to our agency.  As you might expect, though, the need is increasing and some of our major funding sources remain the same or show signs of decline.  Coupled with that is the increased cost of food altogether – some products increasing anywhere from 5-20% versus just a year ago.  So our challenge becomes all that more difficult.

We remind ourselves that people would much rather have the resources to purchase food at the corner grocer than come to our agency; so it becomes all that more important that we ensure that everyone is treated with dignity and respect.  A significant part of that experience will depend on the quantity and quality of food that we are able to offer them.  If we offer them less than they feel they need or the quality of our products falls short, it sends a powerful message, however unintended, how we value them as individuals.  In the end, it is our job to take what we have received from our community and do our best to share it with our neighbors in an equitable way that communicates our belief in the inherent dignity of every person.  Sometimes, we fall short; but like everything we balance in life, we try again the next day, fixing what we can, accepting what we cannot change, and trusting we are doing the best we can with what we have.

What You Have to Give is Enough

“Whatever you do will not be enough, but it matters enormously that you do it.” Gandhi

When I began in this role nearly two years ago, I held on tight to an idealistic belief that our community can foster a spirit of compassion that refuses to accept living conditions that contribute to poverty. “Not in our city!” Time is a good teacher and my idealism, while still fervent, has mellowed with the reality of the struggle. Idealism has it’s place…but reality is never so simple. I’ve learned that true hunger is about so much more than the simple lack of food. Deeper than the physical pangs, we are also witness to a hunger of the human spirit, a hunger for acceptance, a hunger for healthy relationships, a hunger for meaningful work, and a hunger for an end to the struggle. The depth of the challenge does not go away with a box of food. People walk through our doors and share their plans for new and better employment, or resolve to leave a destructive relationship behind or a heartfelt conviction to deal with an addiction; and with each person, I affirm their choices with a firm belief that they will follow-through, yet not surprised when they don’t.

It wasn’t long before I realized that many of these life choices were more rooted in holding onto some hope of change than in reality of actually following through. While it is always hard to stand by as some people make similar choices over and over again, I am reminded we are all human. We all have a difficult time letting go of habits and belief systems, and need the change to start over and over again. So it is with many of our clients.

So we choose to hope…choose to believe…and choose to encourage the new beginnings of the individuals we serve. Perhaps this does not bring an end to a particular life crisis, perhaps it is not enough to cure hunger in Bremerton, but it what we have to give today; and speaking for myself, I am coming to accept and find peace with the fact that that is indeed enough.

10,917 individuals benefited from the services provided.

754,957 pounds of food were distributed.

22,470 hours of donated volunteer and community service labor supported BFL operations. The equivalent of 11 full-time employees.

Posted by Monica Bernhard

A woman came into our agency a couple of weeks ago…in her 40’s…married and mother of two…and in tears. “I’ve tried everything”, she said. “I’m a college graduate…I can’t find a job…I’ll do anything. My husband works, but it takes three weeks of his income just to pay the rent. I know we came in for a basket a couple of weeks ago, but we have no food…We’re so hungry”. Here was a woman, willing to work and unable to find anything …struggling to get by and feed her family. To each and every one of you in this room, I say: This is why we are here.

How do you continue to hope, when everything in life says quit? In a world with increasing poverty, unemployment, homelessness, looming recessions and hungry children, it would be very easy to be cynical…to cast blame on the politicians of either party…to assume that things will never change. But deep down inside, we are all here because we are a people of hope…we want to help…we recognize our blessings and want to share that with others. We have a need to know that lives improve…that kids are safe, that there is enough housing, enough food, and most importantly enough love to go around. Even when there isn’t. For me, my inspiration comes from the people we serve. Day in and day out, they inspire me to hope…they inspire me to believe in the strength of the human spirit….they inspire me to get up and show up one more day and try again. But there are days, believe you me, when coming back in and trying again is not easy.

How do you continue to hope, when everything in life says quit? A man in his 60’s came into my office and told me that he had tried to end his life. …several times. “What was the point?, No one cares about me. I have no one. I am so lonely.” But I knew he did not want to die…he just wanted what we all want…someone to love…someone who cared if he came back at the end of the day. So he comes down to the Bremerton Foodline…sometimes for food, sometimes for a smile…but mostly, I believe, because he knows that we care…and when he is feeling a bit unsteady, we help him restore his sense of hope.

How do you continue to hope, when everything in life says quit? A woman in her late 40’s, diagnosed with stage 4 cancer, and undergoing round after round of chemotherapy and radiation, stops by and asks me an agonizing question… “Monica, what have I done wrong? Why is God punishing me? I’ve tried to be a good person, I don’t want to die….I don’t want to die.” We sit for a while…holding each others hands…I remind her that we are all standing with her. After a hug, DeMorris takes her back for a few bags of fresh produce.…and she sees a few friendly faces.. Linda became one of my dearest friends at the agency She died from complications from breast cancer a few weeks ago.

How do you continue to hope? Continue to hope when your electricity bill is $40 in the middle of winter because you never turn the heat on? Continue to hope when you have to turn to your kid’s piggybank in order to get $7.88 in gas money to get to the doctor? Continue to hope when you pay off one garnishment and are faced with surmounting medical bills. Continue to hope no one has funds to help pay the rent and you are facing eviction with young children. The answer to that is I don’t know…I don’t know how some folks can get up day after day after day, when everything in their life says quit. But they do it…they do it. They do it, because they “Dare to hope”. They dare to hope because the alternative is giving up.

There is a risk in choosing to hope. It is far easier to live life bitter…to be cynical. After all, what if things never get better? Why continue to believe when time after time, our dreams are dashed. Martin Luther King said, “If you lose hope, somehow you lose the vitality that keeps life moving, you lose that courage to be, that quality that helps you go on in spite of it all.”

In my role, it’s easy to be discouraged…in fact, I am not sure how I could do this…face this day in and day out if I did not live from a stance of hope. Hope is not some idealistic dream divorced from reality…hope is the lifeblood of life itself. Hope is grounded in the deep sense that life is good…that good things do happen…that people are worthy of our time and love. We must believe…continue to believe.. even when the world throws reasons at us to quit. We must hold on to our compassion …we must hold onto the promise of hope.

When I first started working at the Bremerton Foodline, I was filled with a sense of untested hope-filled idealism. I knew I had little experience in facing head on the struggles that so many face first hand, living with poverty. I believed the best in people…I chose to trust them…to look beyond and through their stories. Because deep down inside, I knew that good things will happen…people will be helped…problems will be solved.

It took two months before that would be truly tested…two months before I realized that for so many, hope isn’t about wishful thinking or blind idealism. One day in December of 2006, I was approached by two women. The first woman, a single mother of five kids ranging from five to 18 including a child with special needs, was facing imminent eviction. She asked…pleaded…if there was anything we could do to help? Coming up with $50 or a $100 might have been possible, but she needed close to $800 to cover back rent…and that kinds of money was no where to be found. The second woman, was also a single mother or two young children. She was going back to school to train as a nursing assistant, but was completely out of money. She had missed several days of work when her youngest child got sick…now she faced a prospect of losing her job and only source of income, as well as her home. Just days before Christmas, both woman faced eviction…with children…and no where to turn. I called around and connected the second woman with one of our board members who worked with her landlord to extend her terms, and thankfully she was able to remain in her home. There were no such options for the first woman and days before Christmas, all of her belongings were cleared out of her apartment and left next to the sidewalk. A tale of two woman…one we helped stay in her home for Christmas and the other was on the streets.

I was devastated…what happened to my idealism…my belief that good things happen? It took me a while and a great many tears before I realized that it was not about me. Each of us do what we can, day in and day out…but at the same time, the individuals we serve bring their lives, with all their complexity…and challenges that are not ours to solve. We can only do our part…To offer up what is ours to give. Food, where families are hungry…compassion where there is pain and suffering…and hope when there is despair.

As staff and volunteers, we realize that food is just part of the hunger that many people face. So many also carry a hunger for love…a hunger for healing of traumas from their past …a hunger for friendship….a hunger for validation…a hunger for peace for once in their life…a hunger for hope. They hunger for someone to see the tragedy of what happened to them a lifetime ago and tell them it was wrong. They hunger for someone to believe in their possibilities even when they can’t. They hunger for someone to hear their story and find the beauty in it…see the hand of God in their journey …hold it all and say yes.

Several weeks ago, a woman I see often stopped by in the morning before work. She is a drug-addict and a new grandmother, and in spite of all the darkness she faces day in and day out, she lights up when I ask about her grandchild. As she left…I got up to give her a hug. She stopped me and said, you don’t want to hug me…I’m so dirty, I’ve been going through dumpsters, I’m filthy. Of course I want to hug you…of course I do.

That is what we all do here at the Bremerton Foodline. Whether you are working in the repacking room, the front desk, running orders, stocking shelves, donating funds, working in the warehouse…we are all about offering hope. Susan, our office manager, offers hope with each food stamps application, with each story she listens to…Tim, our driver, offers hope with each barrel of food, each rack of bread, each bin of produce that he picks up…and Rachel, our supervisor, offers hope with each volunteer she mentors, each client she serves, each shelve she stocks with food.

Albert Einstein once said, “there are only two ways to live your life: One as if nothing is a miracle, the other is as if everything is. “ My friends, you are part of the miracle that I know as the Bremerton Foodline. If you sit here today, then you have seen first hand the struggle that so many people face in our community…you see how some succeed, while others fail. You see how some try and pick them selves up again and again, and wonder how you would do if you were in the same circumstances.

Our mission at the Bremerton Foodline is to serve people who are hungry in our community. And since the beginning of this year, we have served more than 11,000 food boxes to families in need. To those in the repackaging room…that’s a lot of rice! Perhaps just as important as our mission to serve food is our unspoken mission to be bearers of hope. So I challenge each and everyone one of us right now: Let us be people who dare to be hurt, Dare to be disappointed…Dare to be wrong…Let us also be a people who dare to believe in the people we serve…dare to love those who stand beside us. …dare to have faith in the goodness of life. Let us Dare to Hope!

]]> http://www.bremertonfoodline.org/bfl/?feed=rss2&p=26 0 http://www.bremertonfoodline.org/bfl/?p=16 http://www.bremertonfoodline.org/bfl/?p=16#comments Wed, 30 Jul 2008 20:19:38 +0000 Monica http://www.bremertonfoodline.org/bfl/?p=16 Anyone who is familiar with foodbanks will realize that we are utterly dependent upon the support of our community.  Our agency serves approximately 1,350 households every month and it is indeed a balancing act to keep a variety of quality products available to our clients.  We are continually faced with difficult choices:  Do we spend our money on protien rich meat sources or canned fruits and vegetables?  Can we afford to buy butter or milk?  Cereal or box dinners?  And what about toilet paper or diapers?  Our everyday challenge here is to maximize the donations from our partners and the community and supplement that food supply with staples that are funded by donations to our agency.  As you might expect, though, the need is increasing and some of our major funding sources remain the same or show signs of decline.  Coupled with that is the increased cost of food altogether – some products increasing anywhere from 5-20% versus just a year ago.  So our challenge becomes all that more difficult.

We remind ourselves that people would much rather have the resources to purchase food at the corner grocer than come to our agency; so it becomes all that more important that we ensure that everyone is treated with dignity and respect.  A significant part of that experience will depend on the quantity and quality of food that we are able to offer them.  If we offer them less than they feel they need or the quality of our products falls short, it sends a powerful message, however unintended, how we value them as individuals.  In the end, it is our job to take what we have received from our community and do our best to share it with our neighbors in an equitable way that communicates our belief in the inherent dignity of every person.  Sometimes, we fall short; but like everything we balance in life, we try again the next day, fixing what we can, accepting what we cannot change, and trusting we are doing the best we can with what we have.

When I began in this role nearly two years ago, I held on tight to an idealistic belief that our community can foster a spirit of compassion that refuses to accept living conditions that contribute to poverty. “Not in our city!” Time is a good teacher and my idealism, while still fervent, has mellowed with the reality of the struggle. Idealism has it’s place…but reality is never so simple. I’ve learned that true hunger is about so much more than the simple lack of food. Deeper than the physical pangs, we are also witness to a hunger of the human spirit, a hunger for acceptance, a hunger for healthy relationships, a hunger for meaningful work, and a hunger for an end to the struggle. The depth of the challenge does not go away with a box of food. People walk through our doors and share their plans for new and better employment, or resolve to leave a destructive relationship behind or a heartfelt conviction to deal with an addiction; and with each person, I affirm their choices with a firm belief that they will follow-through, yet not surprised when they don’t.

It wasn’t long before I realized that many of these life choices were more rooted in holding onto some hope of change than in reality of actually following through. While it is always hard to stand by as some people make similar choices over and over again, I am reminded we are all human. We all have a difficult time letting go of habits and belief systems, and need the change to start over and over again. So it is with many of our clients.

So we choose to hope…choose to believe…and choose to encourage the new beginnings of the individuals we serve. Perhaps this does not bring an end to a particular life crisis, perhaps it is not enough to cure hunger in Bremerton, but it what we have to give today; and speaking for myself, I am coming to accept and find peace with the fact that that is indeed enough.