Archive for November 27th, 2008

by Antonia Jacob

This Tuesday evening I volunteered at the H-E-B Feast of Sharing in Austin, an event put on by the eponymous grocery store chain, which offers a free Thanksgiving meal – turkey, potatoes, gravy, cranberries, pumpkin pie, the works – to anyone who shows up. In Austin, over ten thousand people came for the four hours it was open. Staged in a huge convention center, with hundreds of people seated at once, it was a massive example of local philanthropy.

The Feast of Sharing happens in 22 communities in Texas and Mexico, serves over 250,000 meals every holiday season, and has been going on since 1998. My experience was hardly on such a large scale, but there were things I was struck by – and, as happens so often, the things I least expected.

My job was to carry trays of plates out to people who were waiting, and at one point when the trays were slow to come out of the kitchen, to hand out rolls to those waiting to tide them over. I recognized when I first entered the huge hall that, despite a band playing, it was relatively quiet. Any elementary cafeteria, which would house just as many youngsters as were at the tables in the room, not to mention the adults, echoes far more than that room did. The people were not chattering and yelling over the music, in fact, they were for the most part quietly eating or quietly waiting. Do not think they were a stony bunch, but, in its own way, it was a serious affair.

Some, of course, made noise when not fed. Despite the fact that this was a free meal, there were a few complainers, and I did get the idea that some people in the room felt this was somehow owed to them, and perhaps as a community we do owe this to the less fortunate. But what struck me most was who was there.

Now, a free dinner, and, let us not mince words, one of the quality expected when ten thousand meals are churned out of an assembly line, offered in the downtown of a substantial city, should appeal most to those you would expect to see at, say, a soup kitchen: vagrants, the homeless, and the obviously down and out.

However, most of the people in the room I could not peg immediately as destitute. Many, if walking down the street, I would not take a second glance at. In fact, the group of volunteers, from ostensible demographics, did not look all that different from those waiting patiently for the free meal they had come to receive.

I often got the volunteers and the needy confused! This is bizarre, seeing as, having been someone on the receiving end of help at times in my life, I was astounded to find myself on the opposite side of exchange, giving instead of receiving.

It was so effortless for me to wander the tables and hand out bread, smiling all the while – that was my role. The people receiving were in the opposite role: accepting help with gratitude. It seemed to me as I worked the event that, our general perceptions notwithstanding, the line between these two positions is slim.

This is first of all because with a flick of the eye of Fate we could be in that room, stomachs grumbling. Wealth can be evanescent. But, secondly it’s because there was as much joy on the giving end that evening as there was on the receiving. We should not begrudge those who take handouts, as, if we can find a place where we can give, and it is often effortlessly, we can receive just as much in return.

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