December 3, 2014
By Mickey Friedman
I drove with Jurek Zamoyski and Mel Greenberg to pick up and deliver food for Great Barrington’s four food pantries. There’s a pantry at the Calvary Christian Chapel on Route 41, one at the Women’s Infant and Children’s (WIC) office on Stockbridge Road, one at Railroad Street Youth Project, and one at the Senior Center.
Mel is always picking up spare food and making sure it gets to hungry people. A singular ray of light in this ever-darkening universe of ours, he is a small antidote to melting ice and mindless materialism.
Some thought critics were exaggerating when we said many people just couldn’t afford the substantial multi-year tax increases of the 51.2 million dollar high school renovation.
Yet people are struggling everywhere around us.
The other night, out with my poker buddies at Pleasant & Main, our wonderful waitress told us that even though she has lived here her whole life, she could no longer afford an apartment in GB. She’s moving across the border. Forced to commute to the town she loves.
Do you know what the people who serve you make an hour? The cafeteria workers at Monument? The men and women at Kmart and Price Chopper stocking shelves and working the checkout counters?
And do you have any idea what the experts consider a living wage for the Berkshires?
The Berkshire Regional Planning Commission’s recent report on a sustainable Berkshire County economy stated that “a single person would need to make $22,224 a year ($11.85 an hour) to be economically independent … For a single parent with two young children, the number rose to $53,544 ($28.55/hour) and for two parents and two children, the household income needed was $61,428 ($32.76 per hour for one parent or an average wage of $16.38 for two parents working). In weekly wage terms, that would mean $444.48, $1,070.88 and $1,228.56 respectively.”
The reality? “The region’s average weekly wage in 2012 was $771 (US Bureau of Labor Statistics).”
In our Berkshire Hills Regional School District, 13.6% of families sending their kids to school are making $25,000 a year or less. 17.56% of families are making between $25,000 and $40,000 a year. A far cry from the $53,544 or $61,428.
Which means many of our families aren’t coming close to a living wage, and most barely make it.
21% of our children under eighteen in Berkshire County are living in poverty.
Real people who don’t have enough food. Waiting for Mel to bring the day old bread, the bananas, the occasional pork chop, the donuts their kids love from the Donut Shoppe. The hundred who come to Breaking Bread dinners every Thursday evening at the American Legion in Sheffield, dinners prepared by rotating teams of volunteers from Rotary, the Interfaith Committee of the Southern Berkshires, Our Lady of the Valley Church, Christ Church Trinity Lutheran, Salisbury School Youth, Kiwanis, Hevreh, and the South Berkshire Realtors.
Mel, in constant motion, is a veritable help machine. In through the back doors of the Big Y, Guidos, Barrington Bagel, out with more boxes … Doing more than so many of us yet always aware there is more to be done.
Mel told me: “The pantry needs to move because there’s no public transportation. A large number of poor in South County just cannot get to it.
“The Senior Center Pantry is a daily pantry … Many seniors try to survive on their social security. Last winter was so very cold, many of the seniors were living in their houses at 53 degrees. You know the old saying: ‘Food or Fuel, Not Both.’
“There are very few jobs and what jobs there are pay $8.25 an hour. Many are part time with no benefits. Also, we are increasingly an old person’s community. 65% of the citizens in the Berkshires are seniors.”
Then Mel started to talk about diapers.
Thanks to Derek Gentile’s moving coverage in the Eagle, Mel learned about the great work being done by Dr. Marie Rudden at Austen Riggs and her Berkshire Community Diaper Project. They’re helping the one out of every three struggling families who can’t afford the one hundred dollars a month they need for diapers. Naturally, Mel asked his friends at WIC if they could use some help with diapers.
So Mel was schooling me: you need twelve clean disposable diapers a day otherwise babies can suffer serious urinary tract problems. You can’t leave your child at day care centers without leaving a supply of clean diapers. That you can’t use food stamps or purchase diapers under the WIC program. It’s cash or not enough diapers.
So please help Mel help our WIC families. Send your tax deductible contributions to Berkshire Bounty, 248 East Road, Alford, MA 01266 or call (413) 528-4201.
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Reports
Berkshire Regional Planning Commission “Sustainable Berkshires – Economy”
http://berkshireplanning.org/images/uploads/documents/Sustainable_Berkshires-Economy-20140320.pdf
Income statistics for Berkshire Hills Regional School District:
http://www.teachersalaryinfo.com/massachusetts/teacher-salary-in-berkshire-hills/
Food stamp statistics (SNAP) for the First Congressional District, Massachusetts:
http://www.fns.usda.gov/sites/default/files/ops/Massachusetts_1.pdf
Derek Gentile’s articles about diapers for The Berkshire Eagle:
http://www.berkshireeagle.com/News/ci_26580733/Berkshire-Community-Diaper-Project-creates-diaper-bank-for-low-and-middleincome-mothers