Day in and day out, serving as director of the local food pantry, I see a lot of things most folks never get the chance to see. 

Glimpses into the lives of our neighbors facing hardships can be alarming, gut wrenching, and conversely, sometimes heartwarming and humbling. Some of the things that I witness have a way of changing one’s perspective and transforming a preconceived opinion when you least expect it.

A while back, we were having a frequent problem with people filling up our pantry agency business dumpster with household trash. Loads upon loads of bulging bags of beer cans, worn out kitchen appliances, cigarette butts, broken tools, garage debris of every conceivable variety, and all kinds of messy stinky used food packaging and canned kitchen discards. 

You name it, and these random surprises would greet me whenever I lifted the dumpster lid intending to toss in the pantry garbage bag. It was not on a rare occasion that the dumpster got so full of uninvited and unwelcome trash that there was no room leftover to fit inside the trash discards from the pantry’s general operations.

One evening, when I was working late catching up on paperwork, I glanced outside and noticed a woman with her head and half of her torso buried deep inside the dumpster. Nearby sat a pickup truck piled high with odds and ends. 

I’ll admit, my first thought wasn’t charitable. I assumed she was adding another load of unwanted personal trash to the pile. I walked over to discuss the situation and I was fully prepared to tell her that the dumpster was strictly for food pantry use only. 

When I got closer, I realized she wasn’t putting something in. Instead, I observed that she was hunting around and was taking things out of the dumpster. When I inquired about her actions, she quietly explained that she was hungry and was just looking for something to eat. 

She told me, “I am starving, haven’t eaten anything in a couple days, and hoped I could find something in here that I could eat.” 

That moment stopped me cold. 

Now, I don’t recommend anyone eat food from a dumpster. It’s dangerous and unhealthy. But standing there, watching someone search through dirty discarded items because they were hungry enough to take the risk, I realized I had been caught looking at the situation through the wrong lens. 

I had seen a problem. I abruptly came to a conclusion based upon a self-directed point of view that this encounter was about me and my circumstances. What I hadn’t seen was a person.

Conversing with the dumpster diver, I did emphasize that finding food in the trash was not her only, or the most recommended, option. She was literally standing within a few steps away from a food pantry whose mission was dedicated to helping relieve her hunger. 

There, she could get some healthy food. Her response was that it was after hours, she assumed that the pantry was closed, and she didn’t want to bother anybody. 

The faces of hunger are striking. 

Sometimes, hunger looks like a person who accepts a banana or an apple and eats it immediately before their car leaves the parking lot. A neighbor will grasp, tear open and consume a package of crackers before the food box is even loaded into the vehicle.

Children do not veil their hunger behind pride. One day, a young mother pulled up with two small children in the back seat. As a volunteer loaded groceries into the vehicle, the kids eagerly grabbed packages of ramen noodles and began crunching them dry, straight from the package. 

No cooking. No bowl. No waiting. Just hunger.

I’ve watched visitors carefully calculate whether they can afford to buy enough gasoline to get home after coming to receive food assistance. Carpooling among friends and neighbors is extremely common these days, so the gas expense can be shared among multiple households. It is not unusual for three or four families to arrive at the food pantry door in a single vehicle. 

Sometimes, it is challenging to make room to fit all the food boxes into the cars already full of adults and children.  

Hunger doesn’t always look the way people imagine. Hunger is not a stereotypical illustration.

Hunger doesn’t need to be wearing ragged clothes. It doesn’t have to be living under a bridge. Sometimes it rides in a pickup truck. Sometimes it drives a minivan. Sometimes it lives down the street from you. 

And often — it stays hidden.

The truth is that most of us don’t really know what hunger feels like. We may skip lunch because we’re busy. We may joke about starving while waiting for supper. But most of us have never had to wonder where tomorrow’s meal will come from. Most of us have never searched a dumpster hoping to find something edible. 

We haven’t had to make that choice.

I believe we need to keep our eyes open and our hearts softened. When we begin to see people instead of problems, everything changes. Maybe that is the lesson for us. 

We cannot be expected to solve every problem in the world. We cannot eliminate hunger all by ourselves. However, we can see it. We can acknowledge it.

We can respond to it.

The faces of hunger are real. They are alive and present here in Cassville. They are sitting in cars in our parking lot, standing in grocery store lines, and living in neighborhoods we pass through every day.

Sometimes, they are easier to recognize than others.

Just as I learned standing beside a dumpster one evening, a face of hunger can show up when we least expect it. When these moments arrive, my hope is that we will choose compassion over judgment, understanding over assumption, and generosity over indifference.

Janet Mills is the director of Cassville Pantry, located at 800 W. 10th St. in Cassville. She may be reached at [email protected] or 417-846-7871.