Please take a look at what you did for the Cambridge Food Pantry. You are changing the world. Here is a photo and a word essay about what you have done for others in recent weeks.

The Army of Good is, and will always be a non-political entity. Our sole focus is on helping people in need without engaging in political debates or attributing blame to those facing poverty.

Our cred has always been it is better to do good than argue about what good is.

Our stance is clear: do not endorse or support politicians. Our emergence in  2016, a time of intense division, and our resurgence during another tumultuous period reflect our nonpartisan nature and unwavering commitment to doing good.

Our mission is to demonstrate the true essence of unity and compassion free from political influence. This commitment unites us and hopefully spreads. It feels to me that this is happening. The spell is broken. That’s what this means to me.

The Army of Good is also now the Army Of Joy.

For a while, America seemed to have lost its heart and roots. Yet, this is the first time I’ve seen this country as cruel and uncaring. Helping the poor and needy was deeply embedded in the country’s history and heart. I would not be alive without America.

A lot of people can say that. This idea is what the Army Of Good is about.

Far from dying, empathy did not vanish; it was merely overshadowed as America grappled with its identity.

America is really about the Army of Good. Like you, people from all over the country reach out to those less fortunate to ensure that families struggling to feed themselves and their children have enough to eat.

This pantry work is about so much more than the sound issue—your invaluable contribution, ability, and willingness to show empathy and compassion to people in urgent need of help. To step outside of ourselves and into the shoes of others.

The pantry focuses on the outside struggle: Do we care for the needy?

I know what Jesus Christ would say in response. I’m not a Christian but a devoted follower of his message; I have always felt it in my heart.

So do the people we call the Army of Good, scattered and invisible but with a message transforming and uplifting hundreds of people’s lives.

What a message you are sending out to the country. Thank you. The photographs are of what you bought and sent to the food pantry in Cambridge. Without you, they would not be there.

 

(Mexican sauces, beans, and salsa are on the shelves for the first time.)

Our support for the food pantry – far from most people donating – is growing and deepening. The pantry shelves, so often empty with a lot of space between items, complete now for days at a time,  stocked with tampons, dental paste, salad dressing,

My heart sings when I enter the pantry and see those Amazon boxes pouring in.

Mexican dressings, healthy soups, juices, salads, healthy black beans, coffee, tea, tuna, chicken breast, and noodle soups. There never was a women’s area for hygiene and health products, and Mexican sauces and dressings were rarely available.

You are part of a daily miracle. Life at the pantry is never easy, but you have made it easier and lifted the morale, spirits, and dignity of the struggling and frightened.

I met a woman who had to skip tampons to buy food, an older woman who had to take her dentures out because she couldn’t afford the dental paste, and on and on it goes. You helped them all and helped the panty to allow them to live in dignity. (below, Mexican sauces and food.)

 

I don’t want to get cocky, but every week, those shelves are emptied by families increasingly desperate for what the pantry can offer them and what they need and want beyond that. Every week, we have to fill those shelves and close that gap. Some urgently needed foods are being stocked for the first time in years.

More and more Americans cannot afford food, a tragedy in the land of milk and honey. We hope to answer their pleas and restore some of their hope and dignity.

 

(Above) You can join the Amazon Cambridge Pantry Wish List at any time, day or night, seven days a week, by clicking on the green button at the end of every post on my blog. The Wish List is updated every few hours daily.

When I feel low or discouraged about things, I go on the list and buy something, often for $3 or $4. It feels great. When I wake up in the middle of the night, I go to the list and send something. I always get  back to sleep.)

I spent much of the Afternoon with my cameras at the food pantry today. I want to document the scope and meaning of what you have done. I do this from time to time. I need help to keep up.

Support has been building for months but has grown sharply in recent weeks, partly because there is now a permanent green link at the bottom of every blog post.

I credit Pantry Director Sarah Harrington with scouring Amazon’s deepest corners for food at the lowest prices—no food pantry can afford the fancy, organic stuff they would like to buy but what many snooty Ivory Tower Nutritionists think they should.

When they write to me, calling me all kinds of names because we can’t afford the healthiest—and most expensive — food available in America. I have one answer for them:  no food is the unhealthiest of all foods.

They usually run and hide.

I don’t know that much of anything feels better than helping hungry children get enough food and some good surprise treats.

You helped the pantry fill backpack after backpack with food and snacks to go home with them after school.

Evaporated milk is hard for the pantry to stock.

 

The woman’s shelf was empty for a long time but is now full of dental pastes.

 

 

Salad dressings are one of the most challenging things to stock. We did it, at least for a few days.

 

 

 

Tune and Chicken Breast and smoked ham.

 

Rice Pilaf, Red Beans, Rice, Valveeta, and Mac ‘N Cheese.

There always needs to be more dressing for salads.

This nods to Sarah Harrington’s fantastic work and the hard-working volunteers who make the pantry work. Bless them all; they give thanks to all of you.