Tuesday afternoons at the Centre Street Food Pantry are humming with activity.
The police direct traffic as a line of cars queue up at the back entrance of the Trinity Parish of Newton Centre for Senior Hour. Drivers wait patiently in line, order slips tucked neatly inside their car windshields.
Volunteers with nametags move about briskly — checking the order slips, delivering groceries, talking on walkie-talkies. Each order takes only about 45 seconds to be filled.
“The operation’s gotten very sophisticated, like musicians in an orchestra” says Executive Director, Rose Saia. “It’s a true curbside model that’s super fast, super convenient.”
It’s a chilly day. A volunteer throws snowballs to dislodge icicles hanging over the back door. Can snowballs take down icicles? After a few surprisingly accurate throws, the icebergs fall to the ground. Cheers erupt.
Inside the church, volunteers are hard at work. A woman sits behind a desk with a walkie-talkie and a stack of forms. “We use paper and pencil. And somebody on a walkie talkie. This is, like, a callback to the ’80s,” laughs Saia.
In two rooms, refrigerators stocked with eggs, meat, and milk tower over everyone. Some of the refrigerators have been given names to distinguish them from one another. Saia points to the refrigerator in front of her. It has a label on it that says, “Ruth Bader Ginsberg.” Saia pats it fondly.
In addition to the two rooms with refrigerators, there are also three large rooms filled to the brim with food and other necessities, much of it geared towards seniors and children. It seems that there’s too much food here. And yet, by the end of the afternoon, most of it will be gone — packed carefully into trunks and back seats.
The orchestra plays on: clipboards and walkie-talkies, snowballs and spreadsheets, teenagers and retirees moving in practiced rhythm. It is bustling, yes — but beneath the motion is something steady and resolute: people determined, week after week, to make sure no one leaves empty-handed.
