Lou Lessard is a third year ChIME student and the Food Pantry Coordinator at the Pettengill House, a non-profit social service agency near his home in Newburyport, MA. His job has changed a lot as his community has been impacted by the Covid-19 pandemic. There’s more food, more guests, fewer volunteers, more logistics, and, ironically, more time to connect with guests 1:1. Lou notes that, “There’s a lot of change and there’s a lot of support. It’s humbling and breath-taking the way the community has stepped up. I have finally noticed that a lot of what I am really doing at work is chaplaining.”
In the week that MA went into lockdown, the food pantry served twice as many guests as usual. With a 100% increase in need, they nearly ran out of food. The next week, they received a significant increase in food and monetary donations, enough to meet the increased demand. Meanwhile, the pantry’s volunteers, many of whom are in high risk categories for significant Covid-19 complications, dwindled. To keep volunteers and guests safe, Lou has rearranged shelves and corridors, re-purposed waiting rooms, added a storage trailer with shelves, and moved to curbside service. Within the careful choreography for efficiency, space has also been created for heartfelt interaction.
Curbside service has been an opportunity for Lou to connect with pantry guests in a new way. Lou greets each arrival at their car and chats as they review the menu of available items that week. As they talk, he also learns a little more about their lives and circumstances. Many of the guests are regulars and Lou knows that their conversation with him may be one of their only points of human interaction all week. He learns people’s names and listens to their concerns and their stories as he documents their food requests.
A few weeks ago, a guest that Lou has only seen a few times walked to the pantry from the housing project a mile away. As they talked, Lou’s eye was drawn toward a stunning cross that the man wore on the outside of his shirt. When Lou commented on the cross, the man’s story tumbled out, a story of losses layered upon losses and the solace he finds on a walking trail behind the food pantry. “There is a rock down the trail that I like to sit on,” the man described, “I feel a connection to God there.” Lou nodded in recognition. There, once again, in the food pantry parking lot, was space for Spirit.
