Hungry New Yorkers form quarter-mile line for free food in Queens
The line stretched a quarter-mile before the sun was barely up Saturday, snaking around corners like bread lines in the 1930s. But the hungry in Queens are today’s New Yorkers, left jobless by the coronavirus.
Until the pandemic struck the city, La Jornada food pantry used to hand out groceries to roughly 1,000 families a week. Now, the number tops 10,000. And volunteers serve lunch every day to 1,000 — many of them kids with growling stomachs. Across the five boroughs, the hungry is in the hundreds of thousands, the Food Bank of New York estimates.
“It reminds me of the picture from the Great Depression where a man in a suit and tie is giving another man in a suit and tie an apple. That’s all he had,” La Jornada’s Pedro Rodriguez told The Post. “We give all we have, but that’s not enough.”
Seniors, moms and kids, singles — many immigrants from China and Mexico — wait for hours. They turn out in droves wherever, and whenever, the food pantry’s truck shows up.
“We feel like we are underwater, drowning in a tsunami of people,” Rodriguez, a volunteer who acts as the food pantry’s executive director, told The Post. “This isn’t like a little rain coming down. The numbers are unbelievable.”
In less than an hour Saturday, Rodriguez and his army of other volunteers — nearly 400 spread across Queens — checked off almost 250 names from the appointment list.
A volunteer prepares food from the La Jornada food pantry.
The set-up used to be first come, first served until the needy started showing up before dawn because they were afraid La Jornada would run out of food. Once, in late March, the line covered 28 blocks.
Walter Barrera still arrived at 6 a.m. to pick up his family’s groceries for the coming week — rice, potatoes, cans of soup, even fruit and vegetables.
Barrera, 50, has stopped by the food pantry every Saturday since he lost his construction job four months ago. He can’t find work and neither can his two older sons, 19 and 17. His youngest son is 11.
Money is so tight, friends and relatives are helping him with the $2,300 a month he pays for the three-bedroom apartment in Flushing, where he lives with his wife and all of their sons.
“What do I tell my children when they look at me with hungry bellies, especially my 11-year-old son?” said Barrera, who came from South America two decades ago. “It breaks my heart. I’m their father. I’m supposed to feed them.”
Julio Moncayo has a wife and a 7-year-old daughter to support. The 40-year-old construction worker puts in two or three days a week now, but the pay isn’t enough to cover the $1,500 in rent for his family’s two-bedroom apartment in Flushing or their grocery bill.
“I can’t be proud, I have to come here. I have to feed my family,” Moncayo told The Post. “It’s tough. What am I going to do?”
On Sundays, La Jornada’s truck sets up in Woodside. Wednesdays, Rodriguez makes two stops in the Corona neighborhood. Thursdays are set aside for the roughly 900 who live in the public housing development, where the food pantry is based. Seniors and those with disabilities come on Fridays. And Saturdays are for anyone who needs a helping hand.
As soon as Rodriguez wrapped up Saturday, he was on the hunt to restock the truck for Sunday. He gets groceries from wherever he can — the United Way, churches, supermarkets, the Food Bank of New York, the more fortunate.
“We were never prepared for this,” he said, “but we’ve grown into this.”
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The pathetic part of this is that these poor lost fools would join a line just as long to vote cuomo and wilhelm back into office. Let them starve. Darwin had it right.
This is NOT due to the WuFlu, but to governments’ over reaction to the flu. ALL of the destruction can be laid at the feet of politicians trying to gain more power over their subjects.
“ALL of the destruction can be laid at the feet of politicians trying to gain more power over their subjects.”
ALL of the destruction can be laid at the feet of politicians trying to DESTROY their subjects.
There … FIFY …
Look closely at the photo. I see one ” dark face” in the crowd and while its hard to tell, he looks Latino.
Your white privilege let’s you stand in line for hours. The ” racially oppressed” get their EBT cards refilled automatically and don’t wait in lines. Check your white privilege, whitey.
Some of those, second guy as example in first photo, don’t look to be hurting from lack of food.
I can’t help noticing that every single one is overweight.
AND
they all have credit cards that are maxed out, they are all on un-employment or other social assistance programs, yet they all seem to be able to have a working smart phone, that allows them to figure out where the free shit is to be found.
Everyone in these lines have made wrong choices in life, that leads them to believe a free hand out is what is required, which is another incorrect decision.
$2,300 a month for rent? That’s $27, 600 a year for rent alone. No wonder he’s standing in line for food. Any one who lives in that expensive of an area shouldn’t complain, common sense says leave, it’s not like there’s a house holding them down. Is it wrong to wonder how many are here illegally?
And so, the Bernie Sanders’ communist vision of a future America comes a little closer to full realization. He praised bread lines on camera. These power-crazed leftist/progressive/globalists now openly admit their goal is complete control over our lives and utter submission to their “wise and benevolent” rule. The only thing more dangerous than these hopelessly corrupt and incompetent politicians is the ignorant mass of sheeple who continue to vote for them.
There are two New York’s There are the cities(which all have been hollowed out from white flight)It does not take much thought what was left in them. Then there is the other part,affluent suburbs and beautiful rural areas. The cost of living in most of these areas is not really that bad. Where I live it is mostly conservative.With Trump flags everywhere. It is very rural,and anyone who would come here.Would have a hard time believing it was NY. However the population is in those cities. Especially that shit hole down there. The destruction of the state has been going on long before Herr Cuomo.It actually started with his father. That is when the industry and jobs started leaving. They finally got rid of him and elected Pataki. He turned out to be just as bad. Seizing on the good years to further do damage. The pensions were his biggest blunder.All while the industry and good blue collar jobs kept leaving. After tiring of him they elected Spitzer who they took out quickly. The blind nigger then took over. I guess if you can’t see what your destroying.It’s all good. Finally the city idiots graduated with their PHD in stupidity,and elected the current clown. He more than likely if he wanted…..Can be Gov. for life. Most of those outside of NY say they are getting what they deserve. Yes there may be a lot of truth to that. However the way I see it is. NY is getting what they wanted.It may not be how they wanted it,but they getting it anyway. For the rest of us here. We just tune it out,and disobey the stupidity.
Yet, you’re still there?
How is Fort Baxter anyways? (You’d have to be an old fart like me to get that.)
I’m still here because I have so many roots here.There are other places I can go. Just have not.No Excuses. Fort Baxter is that Bilco.
Damn, I feel so sorry for Democrats. NO! fukem.
Hope they just don’t get up to the front of the line and find all they can get is a size eight pair of Air Jordans. I mean this isn’t 1970s Soviet Union we are talking about here.
Free food for fat folks.
It’s in the Constitution.
Things ought to get quite sporty in The Big Rotten Apple when the food actually runs out and truckers are no longer bringing loaded semis to the Hunts Point Market and other distribution nodes due to mostly peaceful protests.
DeBlasio and Cuomo are enemies of, not only the people, but of God.
Maybe they should return to their home nations. Why are they here and why are we feeding them?