An hour or so with the Berkshire Food Project, Thanksgiving-style

If you live in these parts, you’re probably familiar with this sign; at least twice a week, it sits outside of a church in downtown North Adams, Massachusetts.

The sign belongs to the Berkshire Food Project, an organization that provides 15,000 free meals each year, and about which I’ve written before.  The Berkshire Food Project was launched two decades ago, as a response to the rising unemployment and hunger that developed after local manufacturing plants closed their doors.

Earlier this week, the U.S. Food Policy blog wrote about hunger in America, noting that at some point in 2007, 11.1% of U.S. households were food insecure. In a 30-day period, 6.3% of households were food insecure. Fifty percent more U.S. children went hungry in 2007 than in the previous year. And this is, of course, long before the economy collapsed; the numbers are likely even higher today.

People are hungry. They are hungry all over. They are hungry here, in this nation, in my community, in nearby communities. It’s still hard for me to imagine, even now, even in this poor economy, simply not having enough food. Not enough food, for you, or for your kids. If you spend too long thinking about it, it starts to really hurt.

So for a long time, I haven’t thought about it. I saw that sign — for years and years and years I saw that sign — and thought, “I should check that out someday.” I remember thinking that when I was pregnant with Merrie; she is now seven years old.

Today, I finally did something about it. Today, the Berkshire Food Project prepared its annual Thanksgiving meal for community residents, and I went to check it out.

Lunch started at noon, and when I showed up at the church at 11:35, a small crowd had gathered on the church stoop. They’re arriving early, I thought. Wow.

And then I went into the building, and was stunned. It wasn’t a small crowd that had gathered; it was a large one. The Fellowship Hall was full. Already, nearly every chair at every table had been taken. People sat, making conversation, quietly waiting for their meal. I asked one of the volunteers (Kim McMann, who works for Target: Hunger, a project of the Food Bank of Western Massachusetts — you’ll hear more from her in another post) if I had misunderstood the time.

“We don’t serve until noon,” she said. “But it’s cold outside. We open the doors early, so people can stay warm.”

The kitchen was bustling with volunteers, as it had been since about 8:30 that morning:

And at about 11:55, an assembly line of servers got started:

Before I go further, I want to talk about the food. It looked really…good. Like, really good — whole, wholesome, healthy. It smelled good, too, and somehow, I wasn’t expecting that. I mentioned that to Kim, and she said, “Oh, yes, this is real food.”

And it was. The stuffing was made from scratch. The squash came from a local farm, and was sprinkled with nutmeg. The green bean casserole had been prepared from fresh beans. The turkeys had been donated and prepared by Isabella’s Restaurant, an Italian spot known for homemade pasta and wine tastings. This wasn’t just a hot meal, it was quality food, made from real ingredients, much of it local. This photo doesn’t do it justice, but trust me; you’d be impressed.

It’s not just today’s Thanksgiving meal that is fresh and wholesome. Apparently in the summer, the Berkshire Food Project serves gazpacho from local tomatoes and robust salads fresh from the farm. They take farmer’s market fare and turn it in to bubbling soups. They are as much a part of the farm-to-table network as anyone in the area.

Another remarkable thing about the Berkshire Food Project: meals are open to everyone. Anyone at all can wander in off the street to share a meal. You don’t need to verify income eligibility. It is a community meal, which goes a long way toward stripping the meal of any stigma. It is neighbors cooking for neighbors, the way it should be.

You can just show up and eat. You should.

I quickly found myself adding whipped cream (yes, real whipped cream) to the pie:

(And it’s a funny thing about this pie; yesterday, after church, as younger kids, my own included, gathered to make advent calendars, a group of older kids had been baking pies from scratch in the church kitchen. It was only today, as I helped prepare the pies, that I realized that these were the same pies).

The room was full — in fact, there were more people than chairs, and some guests lined up along the walls to eat. There were maybe 140 people in all. They made conversation; as they walked past me, many made a point to say “Happy Thanksgiving.” We shook hands.

I don’t want to make it sound like Mayberry. It wasn’t exactly like that. Many of these people were struggling,  that was clear. When they left this meal, they would return to difficult circumstances. Kim shared some stories — mental illness, disability, poverty. She told me about one woman she met recently, who after being asked where she shopped for food regularly, responded by saying, “I don’t shop anywhere regularly. We don’t have that kind of money.”

No, it wasn’t Mayberry. But it wasn’t what I’d expected either. It was warmer than I’d expected. Friendlier. It was a community, and it was a community where dignity and the quality of the meal mattered.

After the meal was served, after I’d taken my photos, someone handed me a plate. I sat down, amid volunteers and clients, and I ate. I ate every bit. And you know what? It was delicious. I’m not kidding; it was really, really good. Not better-than-I-expected. Good. And why wouldn’t it be? It was real food, much of it fresh from the farm, all of it prepared with love and friendship.

I’ll go back. If you’re local, and you’d like to join me sometime, shoot me an email, or join their listserv here. If you’re not local, there’s probably something like this in your community; I encourage you to volunteer. Don’t wait seven years. There are meals to be served, a community to meet.