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Live United by Erin Haag

The doorbell rang constantly all week. I joked that I needed to set up shop right at the front door. People were dropping off coats, hats and scarves. Social workers were stopping by to pick up those winter gear items as we worked our way through clearing the list for this year. Thanks to one of the local 4-H clubs and the three Lutheran churches they teamed up with, the list was significantly reduced. We loved having the kids come and help hang up coats and sort through the list, organizing piles for easy access for our volunteers to pick up and deliver to the schools. Our list will be updated at our website at http://unitedwayfc.org/communityneeds.

New volunteers were dropping by this week. I love learning their stories and hearing what brought them to our door. A newly minted 7-year-old gave me a doughnut to celebrate her birthday. A property manager stopped by to see if we could use some items left behind by a tenant. After learning about our Community Needs Program, he returned with the items we had on our list. While we didn’t discuss it, he also brought along a walker. I accepted it, knowing I could find a home for it.

Thursday afternoon, I stood at the base of our completed ramp, greeting shoppers and helping them learn the new routine. I was soaking up every moment of those blue skies and fresh breeze that felt more like October than December. One shopper had some questions about resources, so we chatted. In our conversation, she mentioned that she hoped to get in early. She wasn’t supposed to be putting weight on her leg because she had a stress fracture. She knew she shouldn’t be up at all, but she didn’t really have the option to stay off it for six weeks. As I watched her limp forward, I asked her, “Could you use a walker?” “I sure could, but I don’t have the money to get one.” “Someone donated one this morning. Would you like to see it?” Ten minutes later, the new-to-her walker that had been donated just that morning was loaded up in her car. She had groceries, and she told me that she was going to have a nice meal to celebrate her birthday the next day. I wished her a happy birthday and moved on to bandaging up an owie on a little girl’s finger and holding firm that she couldn’t have all the band-aids in the First Aid kit. A reminder to the parents and grandparents out there — fun band-aids make a fantastic gift for the 7 and under crowd.

Our beautiful ramp is in place and working well. It’s been put to the test with wagons, shopping carts and motorized wheelchairs. One wheelchair user zipped right up and was able to access the pantry comfortably. I made sure to contact him, asking if there was anything that could be improved, and he felt it went great. A community advocate stopped by, checked out the ramp and gave me some ideas for the door to make it even better.

Things are good. They’re busy, but they’re good. There are things we can do to make it better. Sometimes, the changes are little, like adding kick-down doorstops to our backstock room doors. I bought a couple more clocks for the space, and Rosemary and I made new cards to hand out to new individuals for the pantry. We’re also discussing big changes and what our options look like.

From an operations standpoint, we’ve exceeded our capacity. We’ve made it these six months by working way too many hours, burning daylight at both ends. One of the food shelf’s founding principles was providing access to food resources during non-traditional hours. We carefully wrote out all the times and dates of food resources on a calendar, considered our trucking availability to access food, and chose a timeframe that would be early enough for daytime but also be accessible to those getting off work at 5 p.m. We ordered enough food, so the people arriving at 5:45 p.m. have the same access to milk and eggs that the people who are first in line do.

When we began, we estimated 35 households per shift. We currently average 75 to 80 households.

Monday evening we served 83 households and had to turn away 15 to 20 families. We reached capacity at 4:30 p.m.

We have a mama that comes in with her two children. She’s a great mom. She brings her children to our play mat over in the corner, and she engages with her children. This mama is so patient, keeping her boys occupied. Whenever Nikolle walked through the room, the boy would eagerly say, “I’m 79!” It broke her heart a little every time as she called numbers in the twenties. It’s usually about an hour, but that’s such a long wait for a little boy.

I know that the hearts of our volunteers break when we have to turn families away. Our volunteers will stay late, and later and later. It’s been worse lately. Seeing a family walk away in the darkness hits a lot harder than when they walk away in the late summer sunshine. Knowing that someone worked all day at their job to provide for their family as best as they could, and they came to us for help, and all the chairs in the waiting room are full, and there’s standing room only — that’s tough. That’s not fulfilling our mission, not accomplishing our goals.

I don’t know what the answer is. We’ve got some ideas, though, and next week, I’ve got some meetings to learn from others who have gone before us. We decided that any changes will wait until mid-late January. It’s too close to the holiday break to shake things up, and we don’t want to disrupt anything right after, either. When I get discouraged, though, I think about all the stories we’ve had these past months and look at our progress. Change may not be happening as fast as I’d like it to be, but it’s happening, and tomorrow’s another day.

Erin Haag is the executive director of the United Way of Freeborn County.