Helping the Hungry

November 29, 2007

By Alex Kratz

It’s real simple, says Frank Wilkes. Without POTS, a soup kitchen and northwest Bronx institution for the past 25 years, “people would have starved.”

The day before Thanksgiving, Wilkes, a 60-year-old homeless man who says he’s eaten at the soup kitchen daily since POTS (Part of the Solution) opened its doors in 1982, sat at a table in the group’s Webster Avenue dining room eating a hot plate of sausages, rice, beans and hearty bread.

Behind him, Joel Berg, executive director of the New York City Hunger Coalition, explained to a television reporter that lines at the city’s kitchens and pantries were increasing while the federal government continues to slash food stocks as a Farm Bill that would increase food aid languishes in a gridlocked Congress.

In other words, the fight against hunger in the United States and the Bronx remains an uphill battle.

“The biggest reason,” Berg says, “is President Bush.”

Bush speaks out of both sides of his mouth, Berg says. The president asks middle-class Americans to give to faith-based charities while, at the same time, threatening to veto the Farm Bill that includes an increase in food commodities for soup kitchens like POTS. The bill also increases food stamps, which Berg says is even more important in the hunger fight. The less people rely on soup kitchens the better, Berg says.

But soup kitchens are seeing a spike in usage.

That’s why every year around Thanksgiving, when thoughts invariably revolve around food, Berg runs around the city (the excitable Coalition head came into POTS sweating and breathing heavily last Wednesday) reminding people that hunger remains a pressing issue that needs our, and more importantly, our government’s, immediate attention.

Kitchen Use on the Rise

Here are a few sobering facts from the Coalition’s annual report: Citywide, pantry and soup kitchen use increased 20 percent in 2007 from the year before. In the Bronx this year, 88 percent of food agencies said they saw an increase in demand. Meanwhile, 65 percent of Bronx agencies said they didn’t have enough to food to meet that demand. And finally, 54 percent of Bronx agencies said they were forced to ration food by limiting portion size, reducing hours and/or turning people away.

Although it’s still struggling, POTS, the only daily soup kitchen in Community Board 7, is doing “better than average,” Berg says. Wilkes, a hefty man and one of many POTS regulars, can attest to that fact.

POTS serves two meals a day during weekdays and one extended lunch on Saturdays and Sundays. Plus, “we never turn anyone away,” says Pastor Ned Murphy, the native northwest Bronxite who founded POTS and still spends much of his time there.

In addition to serving hot food, POTS gives away food from its pantry, provides clothing as well as Internet and shower access, and offers 20 free haircuts a day.

Berg adds that POTS is one of five New York City organizations now participating in a pilot program that allows clients to apply for food stamps directly from the agency’s computers. Although the government has helped improve access to food stamp programs, it’s not doing enough, Berg says. Nearly one-third of people eligible for food stamps are not enrolled in the program.

Sitting in the POTS dining room the day before Thanksgiving, Fabian Cancel, a former heroin addict who’s now in a methadone program, says he lives in Tremont with a roommate, for now.

Cancel wears a do-rag and a thick camouflage jacket. He sports a goatee and a bandage on his left wrist. He talks about Puerto Rican revolutionaries and the history of his native city, Ponce. He talks about how he wants to get a job, but getting methadone from a Harlem clinic takes up most of his time. Cancel says having POTS around allows him to stay out of trouble while he attempts to get his life back together.

“Hopefully soon, I’ll get a job, God willing,” Cancel says. “I’m almost 40 years old.”

Filling in the Gaps

In addition to POTS, there are a few other efforts in the area to feed the hungry.

Hands on New York, a fledgling nonprofit run out of the University Heights apartment of activist Haile Rivera, helps out food-wise when it can. Last Tuesday, Rivera, who also works for the Food Bank for New York City, gave out more than 200 turkeys at Fordham Evangelical Lutheran Church, thanks to a last-minute $1,000 donation from Bronx Bachata group Aventura. Bronx-based Cibao Meat Products chipped in a couple dozen turkeys as well.

Rivera sent 25 of those birds to Concourse House in North Fordham, a full-service transitional shelter for women and their children.

Epiphany Lutheran Church in Norwood provides hot meals for seniors, and whoever else walks into the basement dining hall, twice a week during lunch, as part of its St. Stephen’s meal program, which receives funding from the United Way.

For 18 years, the St. Stephen’s program has fluctuated from a high of four meals a week, to the current low of two. Starting in January, thanks to increased funding from the city’s Department of Aging, the program will jump back to three days a week, says volunteer director Anthony Bopp.

Last Wednesday, Bopp brought in his wife and stepdaughter to help make the annual Thanksgiving meal as he continues to search for a new cook.

A woman wearing a “Bronx” hat said she forced herself to leave her apartment to make it the meal because she wouldn’t be celebrating Thanksgiving with anyone on Thursday. “I’m depressed,” she said. “I needed to do something nice for myself.”

Over the summer, using a little funding from United Way and Lutheran Social Services, Bopp and a few volunteers spruced up the dining hall using materials they purchased from Home Depot.

Bopp says the meals program takes a lot of commitment from volunteers like himself. And Bush isn’t helping, he says. “The president cut food programs to fund the war,” Bopp says.

That won’t stop him and other Epiphany members from doing their part. “It’s really important,” Bopp says. “We’re the only soup kitchen in Norwood.”

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