Last week, late on my way to another meeting, I moved hurriedly down the halls of Sacred Heart checking voicemail with one ear and trying to think with the other. I had just received the latest numbers: during March of last year, we had served food to 13,336 individuals through our pantry program. Last month it was 19,103.
Rounding the corner to our Welcome Center I was stopped short by the crush of people pressing into the building. For a moment I stood and surveyed the jostling expanse: there were young and old, round and slender, black, white, and brown; there was a young man with an oxygen tank, a spidery boy with a bar of soap, a woman in a suit, a girl holding a baby, and all were waiting with impossible patience for the food they would eventually receive.
As I squeezed past this one and that, worrying that my polite pardon me’s were sounding less and less sincere with each repetition, I eventually made it to the half-way point across the room. There at the Welcome Center desk, with the phone on her shoulder and finishing a conversation with the customer standing before her, was my colleague, Eva.
Seizing the moment before she returned to the person on hold, I asked Eva, “What is the most notable thing you’ve seen over the past week? Something that surprised you out here.”
She thought about it, but for only an instant: “There are more men coming in.”
“What do you mean? Just more men in general?”
“No, I mean with their families. Entire families are now coming in, including the husbands and fathers. It used to be either single men or women with their children. Now it’s everyone lining up together. There’s no one left—no one is immune.”
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