You are Holly Han and you’ve just been hired to run the Berkshire Community Action Emergency Food Pantry located at 85 Main Street in the city of North Adams, Massachusetts. North Adams is a small post-industrial city of about 15,000 people located in rural Berkshire County.

Your food pantry, along with a few others in this area, provides free groceries to low income people, many of whom are clients for the other services of your non-profit organization. You purchase some of the food you distribute from the Food Band of Western Massachusetts; some you receive through federal and state programs and some from donations from individuals and organizations.

The pantry hours are 9-3pm Monday through Friday. Because of the small size of your office, you store most of the food in a large closet down the hall. Every weekday morning, you go down to the closet and gather non-perishable food to place in meal packs which you then hold in a large shopping cart next to the reception desk in the office. Some people call before coming to get food or help but many just walk in.

Today is shaping up to be a very busy day, even in this rural community, because it is the 27th day of the month. Many working people are paid at the beginning of the month and many social security recipients receive their benefit checks early in the month so now is the time when the money runs out.