A western Massachusetts minister, who started a food pantry that now serves 650 families a week, is retiring after 32 years.
Rev. Joel Huntington of the South Congregational Church in Pittsfield gives his last sermon on Sunday.
He discussed how his thinking about his ministry evolved after he arrived in 1989.
Joel Huntington, minister: When I came, there was a lot of curiosity and puzzlement, really, because traditional church in a community that's struggling just felt like a real mismatch of just being concerned about the church, and trying to do all the church-growth things, you know — expanding membership and expanding the endowment.
None of that made a lot of sense. I really saw my congregation as a seed bed — that they likely had seeds here, in the sense they already knew what they needed. I just needed to help uncover it, and empower it and expand on it.
And that's where the whole food ministry came from, because one of my congregants — part of the mission board — said, "Could we help with a weekly meal?" Each congregation in town was setting these up. That's kind of where that started, and that just bore amazing fruit. A hundredfold, like Jesus talks about.
Nancy Cohen, NEPM: What makes the community food pantry at the South Congregational Church different?
We didn't want to have a line between the volunteers [and the] congregation members, and the guests and the clients. We wanted to soften that line, and as much as possible, make it disappear.
So from the beginning, we've had lots of volunteers who are also guests and clients. We're a fairly small community of about 45,000... In that kind of a community, people who are in need often are related to, or have friendships with, people who can provide service. And over time, those roles can shift.
There's lots of quantities of food, and we need lots of help. And lots of our members are older, and lots of our clients are younger.
We get people getting out of prison or out of substance abuse programs, and they'll come — or homeless folks who, you know, have complicated history, who can't get housing and are homeless. And yet they're more than willing to help.
And so everybody mixes together — multicultural, multiracial, multi-economic status. So it all blends together.
It's just a very — from my perspective — a very rewarding environment to immerse myself in, because it makes you aware of the deep need of the community.
It also makes you aware of the deep generosity of the community, and weaving those two things together more and more feels like that's where structural change could eventually come.
Why was the issue of hunger so important to you?
It's a big deal in the Bible, both the older testament and the newer testament: "Feed the hungry," over and over again.
But personally, I grew up in an alcoholic family, which led to a lot of instability. Food insecurity is not just a category. It was an experience of watching mom, you know, because the support checks were very uneven and there were five kids, so she was just left hanging.
I was the oldest and 12, 13 years old, a little boy full of energy making these mayonnaise sandwiches, saltine crackers with chocolate sauce over it and imagining that's my ice cream sundae because they never could keep me fed. And sometimes the refrigerator was quite empty.
Feeding people, especially the kids, just always, always touches me in a very deep personal place, because I could have used a little more of that.
Besides the food pantry, you've done a lot of work bringing people of different faiths together. Why is that a priority for you?
It seems like coming together is what this time is all about. How do we, together, seek the common good rather than our own private concerns, whether that's individual or congregations?
And in a struggling community like Pittsfield, it becomes evident that if we're going to make it through, we've got to work together.
