These days, instructions heard at food pantries sound like they’re straight from a gangster movie.
“Stay in the car.”
“Pop the trunk.”
Yikes! What’s next, “Leave the gun, take the cannoli?”
Sorry. That last line from The Godfather slips out now and then. But those other two sentences are the norm, the real thing, the manner in which those in need are told to pick up their food at the pantries.
It’s the drive-thru version of food shopping, and it’s getting quite popular across the country due to the powerfully infectious nature of the coronavirus. We’re fighting a war together. Just keep away.
“They used to come in and pick it up themselves,” said Linda Patton, the manager at the Boscawen Congregational Church UCC Food Pantry. “No more. Someone brings boxes to the car. We wear masks. We have a lot of hand sanitizer.”
Masks and hand sanitizer have evolved into our dinner conversations. Breakfast and lunch too, if you’re isolating with family. Ventilators and masks had been in short supply in recent weeks, and that problem continues to this day.
But food? At the area’s pantries? Fear not.
There’s plenty, through private donations and the New Hampshire Food Bank, which features a warehouse in Manchester the size of Rhode Island. Patton had just returned from there when I called. She goes once a week. She bought a lot.
“Tuna, 30 dozen eggs, cheese sticks, canned chicken, assorted chips and nuts, chicken legs,” Patton said. “And we just got our government delivery, so we are getting quite full now.”
Full enough to meet their demands, which have grown since the virus spread. Patton’s weekly client list has jumped from 85 to more than 105.
“We have a freezer that is completely full of whole chickens,” Patton said.
And while food is always welcome, money makes this altruistic world go ‘round. “For every dollar, we can buy two or three meals with it,” Patton said.
The shelves are full at the Salvation Army Food Pantry on Clinton Street as well. Nikki Holtgrewe, the manager there, said “We have lots of food, and we are in the business of giving it out. We can always use prepared meals, SpaghettiOs with the pop-top because they don’t always have a can opener. Corn-beef hash, beef stew, Progressive soups.”
Good thing there’s enough food, because Holtgrewe said there’s been a 64 percent uptick in the Salvation Army’s number of clients since the world was humbled.
“It’s a lot more people, but it’s wonderful,” Holtgrewe said. “The sign says food pantry, and we have lots of food and we’re in the business of giving it out.”
She takes orders by phone, asking if breakfast means Cheerios or Rice Chex, if dinner means pork or chicken. Then she packs a box.
And like Patton’s place, only staff and volunteers are allowed inside, and similar rules apply when picking up groceries.
“After they pop the trunk,” Holtgrewe said, “we ask them to wait until we get inside before coming out of the car.”
Meanwhile, Claire Wallace is the treasurer at the Bread and Roses Soup Kitchen in Franklin. Once, she served meals on Mondays and Thursdays at 5 p.m. Once, though, things were normal.
“Since the outbreak, we cannot have people coming in and sitting around a table,” Wallace said. “We have a variety of stuff we put in a brown paper bag.”
Bags are given out on Mondays and Fridays, 4 to 5 p.m. Frozen rotisserie chickens are a big hit. Bread, dessert, fresh veggies, too.
“One person at a time,” Wallace said, “You pick up and you leave.”
That way, you don’t have to stay in your car.
And you don’t have to pop your trunk, either.
But, if you can find it at one of the area’s food pantries, certainly take the cannoli.