The Good Neighbor Food Pantry is partnering with Family of Woodstock to keep the community Thanksgiving meal tradition alive and feed families and individuals in need.
Chef Ric Orlando, Stephanie Schachter from the former Joshua’s restaurant, and a handful of volunteers will be cooking Thanksgiving dinner.
This year, dinner will be offered through two seatings instead of the traditional open-ended arrangement, where a steady stream of people came through the community center all day.
“We realized in the past they left it open, come in when you want, and we weren’t able to feed as many people,” Orlando said.
This way, people have time to eat and socialize, then the volunteers have time to get ready for the next seating, he explained.
“So we’re hoping to do two full turns, so we can maximize it and feed as many people as possible,” he said.
Orlando hopes to feed about 150 to 175 people per seating, or around 350 for the day.
Orlando, with the help of volunteers, will cook the turkeys. The sides are donated by local restaurants through coordination with Family. Aside from turkey and all the fixings, Chef Ric will be cooking pollock and salmon.
The seatings will be held 12 to 1:30 p.m. and 2:30 to 4 p.m. on Thanksgiving Day, Nov. 27. Call the Family hotline at 845-679-2485 to reserve your spot.
“I’ve been here for almost a year now, mainly because I can raise money and I have expertise in getting food into people’s mouths,” said Orlando, Good Neighbor Food Pantry’s president and executive director.
The family-style sit-down meal isn’t the only opportunity to get quality food for the holiday. The food pantry is coordinating with the Regional Food Bank of Northeastern New York to distribute 400 Thanksgiving meal boxes with turkey, ham and all the fixings. It is part of a first-ever wide-scale Thanksgiving meal distribution with sites in Ulster and Dutchess counties. The Woodstock distribution begins Nov. 22 at 8 a.m. in the Mountainview parking lot across from Colony Woodstock.
Good Neighbor Food Pantry is the only pantry in Ulster County that is part of the massive turkey distribution, said Peter Humphries, vice president and logistics manager.
“The Regional Food Bank is just incredible. They move and supply so much food. And they’re super helpful, helpful getting grants,” Orlando said.
“Our grants were cut by the Trump administration, but we’ve made up for a lot of that with other grants that we didn’t even know existed. And people are donating … It’s amazing. I use my social media prowess to put some posts up saying that we’re going to need some funding,” he said.
“People are supporting us, and we’re feeding more and more people.”
Aside from the food pantry in Woodstock, Good Neighbor Food Pantry supplies food to Family of Woodstock’s Darmstadt shelter in Kingston and the Kingston Motel, which provides emergency housing in the town of Ulster.
“We move food all over the place to keep making sure that whatever we have gets used. Nothing goes to waste,” Orlando said.
Between the food pantry and Family of Woodstock, food is available every day of the week.
“We’re the only town in the county … that seven days a week in this town if you’re food-deprived you can get food,” Humphries said.
Orlando describes the pantry as “a little supermarket,” and it is made to be user-friendly and not cluttered.
The food pantry, located behind the Christian Science Church, is open Monday, Wednesday, Friday and Saturday from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m., but it doesn’t stop there. Humphries has been known to come and open the pantry for those who are working and can’t come during its normal hours. Even while the pantry is closed to the public, it’s buzzing with activity seven days a week, with volunteers picking up or delivering food and rotating stock.
More qualify than you’d think
“We’re trying to raise awareness to the community how eligibility works, because a lot of people don’t think they’re eligible. They think you have to be poor,” said Orlando. An individual with a net income of $38,000 can qualify, but no documentation is required.
“We take your word for it. We don’t check it. If you say you’re eligible, you’re eligible,” Orlando said.
“We do have a really interesting evolution of who’s coming here. Young families, lots of young families in their 30s, a couple of kids. Maybe the husband’s a carpenter who works on and off. Maybe the wife works in retail or something, and they’re coming,” he said.
“And it’s an interesting thing to see because you think of food pantries as people in poverty, but it’s not poverty. It’s just working class, lower class, working class poor — not even working poor. Working class people are eligible,” Orlando said.
Food arrives constantly from the regional food banks and from Hannaford, which generously donates each day. Local bakeries, including Bread Alone, Heidelberg, Rock Hill and Dave’s Bread, also make regular donations.
It’s not just meat, produce and canned food. A cooler near the entrance features a variety of prepackaged sandwiches and wraps and other prepared foods that are popular with those who are either unhoused or live in a place without a kitchen or stove.
“There’s a cooler right in there for that and certain people come every day and get their sandwich and get an apple and they’ve got a meal, which is really cool,” Orlando said.
Feeling the pinch of SNAP cuts
Since the government shutdown cut Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits, otherwise known as food stamps, the Good Neighbor Food Pantry saw a dramatic increase in weekly visits — up from around 350 per week to a peak of 552, Orlando said. Though SNAP benefits have restarted, those weekly visits may level off, but Orlando anticipates some will become regular customers as they discover the resources the pantry has to offer.
Aside from Family and the Good Neighbor Food Pantry, the town also has a place to get a prepared meal.
Down the road is the Daily Bread Soup Kitchen, run by Christ’s Lutheran Church at 26 Mill Hill Road, which has launched its annual community fund drive.
Daily Bread serves around 3,000 meals a year on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays from 4 to 5 p.m. Many of the guests face homelessness, food insecurity and health issues, which have been exacerbated by the SNAP cuts.
“One day this fall, I noticed that all of the guests to the meal program were senior citizens and that two of them mentioned conditions of homelessness,” said the Rev. Sonja Tillberg Maclary, pastor of Christ’s Lutheran Church.
The soup kitchen doesn’t just offer food. It offers companionship for a few days a week.
“There is a real epidemic of loneliness and anxiety in our communities,” Maclary said. “Daily Bread is an opportunity to come out, be with other people and do one of the most fundamentally human of things — eat a meal with others.”
Meals are available to eat at the soup kitchen or to take out, she said.
Daily Bread serves all people and does not ask questions about income.
“Regardless of what is happening in the nation, it is fundamentally important for all people to have places in a community where they are just plain welcome,” Maclary said.
“That’s the spiritual practice of hospitality, and we try to live it out through this ministry.”
Donations can be made payable to Daily Bread Soup Kitchen, 26 Mill Hill Road, Woodstock, NY 12498.
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