Community Corner

Wilton Families In Need

The number of families receiving food aid from the town is at an all-time high and they and local aid organizations need assistance.

Kate Lombardo knows what it's like to go hungry in Fairfield County and that's what makes her so good at her job.

Lombardo is the Executive Director of the Food Bank of Lower Fairfield County and has a work ethic that is as tireless as the demands of the area's poverty and hunger. That's a fortunate thing nowadays, as the number of local families in need of aid is steadily on the rise; consider that Wilton, alone, now has an all-time high of 55 families receiving meals from the town's own food pantry.

"When you see poverty and then you see another life beyond that, you think you've arrived at something that's worthwhile," Lombardo said as she single-handedly juggled ringing phones and doorbells at her temporarily understaffed office. "And the reality is that poverty taught me a lot of lessons.  Goldman Sachs allowed me to see the world and taught me a lot, as well. But there was always this nagging to come back and do it differently, do it with dignity, work harder...dignify the agencies and dignify the people that wait in these long [food] lines."

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Lombardo has firsthand experience with hunger and the shame families in Fairfield County sometimes feel when tough economic times leave them with nowhere else to turn. As a child, she remembers taking two buses and riding 21 blocks to the food bank with her family to hide the embarrassment they felt at getting food assistance.

"The reality is that there is no shame in being in need," she said. "The shame occurs to us as human beings when we're capable of helping and we fail to. That is where the shame lies, not in being in need."

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Lombado was able to move on from the constraints of a needy childhood to work for, travel the world with, and ultimately retire comfortably from Goldman Sachs. But rather than turn her back on the difficulties she felt growing up, she was driven back to help families that today experience the same overbearing challenges that she was able to overcome.

The Food Bank of Lower Fairfield County is a nonprofit organization that receives its funding and resources through food drives, advocacy (what she calls putting faces on the poor), FEMA, the United Way and other state and national agencies. Lombardo has worked there for ten years now, following her retirement, and works in close concert with municipal organizations like Wilton's own Interfaith Food Council to help feed area families.

"We distribute 1.4 million pounds of food with five employees," Lombardo said. "I will tell you I'm retired from Goldman Sachs and I grew up on welfare and between the two, you learn how to work...Wilton was always a town that was self-sustainable but not even there is it okay anymore...and 2010 is only going to be worse. People are dipping into their resources and emergency funds and those funds are eventually going to dry up. In some cases, they already have."

Wilton's Social Services Department used to handle food distribution throughout the town but the costs associated with doing so increased so dramatically in the past few years that something else had to be done. So, the town founded the Interfaith Food Council, a 501(c)3 organization.

Lombardo's organization sells food products, particularly protein-based items and perishables that cannot typically be donated at food drives, to other nonprofits at deep discounts. USDA-approved food is actually free of charge and FEMA-sponsored food products are free, as well, but for a carrying cost that is typically 19 cents a pound. Lombardo said the carrying cost helps them cover shipping and storage expenses and even that they typically drop to around nine cents per pound.

The trouble for Wilton was that Lombardo's food bank is only permitted to sell and give food to organizations that are classified as nonprofits, and this does not include municipal organizations (which is precisely what the Social Services Department is). So, the town set up the Interfaith Food Council in June of this year so they could work with Lombardo to meet Wilton's ever-increasing food demands.

Cathy Pierce is the Director of Social Services in Wilton and oversees the Interfaith Council, along with the help of Lauren Hughes, also a Senior Director in town. She reported that in July, the agency handed out 790 meals to Wiltonians, serving 53 individuals between the ages of 18 and 64, 52 individuals under the age of 18, and nine individuals over the age of 65. By August, these numbers had grown to 870 meals in total, equating to somewhere between 55 and 60 families all told.

"I think it's safe to say that our numbers have at least doubled," Pierce said.

To date, Lombardo's organization has distributed 12,571 pounds of food to the Wilton Interfaith Council at a price of only $1,429. To put this figure in perspective, consider what you might pay for a pound of meat at the grocery store, perhaps somewhere around $5 on a good day. Do the math, and buying the necessary amount of food retail would cost the Interfaith Council somewhere in excess of $62k. Even at Costco, that amount would be around $10k more of what the council currently spends.

The Food Bank of Lower Fairfield County has already saved the communities it serves (which include Wilton, Greenwich, Norwalk, etc.) over $765k this year. In a county like Fairfield, where net-worths and incomes are some of the nation's highest, the scale of this number could easily get lost; but it is huge.

"The reality is that we've always had poor in the community," Lombardo said. "But we're seeing it now because it's spreading out to families that haven't ever been affected before...the poor have always been there but because it's reaching a broader spectrum of humanity, it's being more publicized and becoming more dire."

Hughes does all of the shopping for the Interfaith Council, usually heading down to Lombardo's organization on a Tuesday morning and spending a few hours stocking up on goods to ensure Wilton's families get nutritious, well-balanced meals. She typically buys about 1,000 pounds of food per trip.

The Interfaith Council is also sustained by local food drives. Temple B'nai Chaim in Georgetown, the Wilton Baptist Church, and the local Kiwanis Club have all held drives recently that greatly aided the council's efforts.

Nevertheless, Pierce, Hughes, and Lombardo all stressed the importance of participating in these drives, whether by donating or helping staff them, because their organizations can never receive enough goods and are often pressed to find people to assist with their work.

Lombardo pointed out that in addition to donations made locally, she encourages Wiltonians to give to her organization, as well, saying that "giving to [us], too, is very important because most people who live in Wilton will not line up in Wilton...they line up here in Stamford, instead, because if you're ashamed or embarrassed, you're likely to drive somewhere else to get help."

The Wilton Interfaith Food Council is housed in the Comstock Community Center and Hughes and Pierce can be reached at 203-834-6238. They both said the council needs paper goods (paper towels, toilet paper, etc.), perishables, and things like detergent the most, as people often forget to donate these necessities, and they can be brought to Comstock at any time. The Food Bank of Lower Fairfield County is located at 461 Glenbrook Road in Stamford, and can be reached at 203-358-8898.

"When electricity and gas are off," Lombardo said, "you can survive. But when there is no food, that's when it really brings on the stress and things break down, trying to keep ends together, trying to keep pace...that is incredible stress for human beings. Human beings shouldn't have to worry about food anywhere."


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