""It's incredibly sad," said Marice Ash, who has volunteered every Wednesday for three and a half years. "It just feels like a very mutual, self-help community coming together. I'm going to miss it ... and people need this. That's hard, too, knowing that we're closing when there's so much need.""
""We're a little anarchic," she said, laughing. "It's a creative place, and we're not stuck in narrow jobs. If you see a job that needs to get done, you can jump in and do it. And the clients are jumping in all the time, too.""
""I've never missed a day since," Franklin said."
""I said, '[Do] you want me to put my groceries in the car and then I'll come help?' That's how that happened," she told KQED. "It's a nice interaction with the people, and it makes me smile," she said. "If you can smile on Wednesday, you can make it to Friday.""
Volunteers and regular clients face the loss of a long-standing community food pantry due to its closure. Volunteers describe the pantry as a mutual, self-help space where anyone can jump in and clients often help run operations. Long-term volunteers like Marice Ash and Franklin emphasize deep personal commitment and daily presence. Becky Cooper and others began helping after initially coming for groceries and now staff specific areas during distributions. Nearby food banks will likely absorb some stock and customers. The pantry was founded in 1969 by a Berkeley Friends Church member and operates under the church's 501(c)(3); negotiations occurred last month.
Read at Kqed
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