Donald Briggs

My name is Donald Briggs. I’ve been coming for five-and-a-half years, and I first came partly because I wanted to get into doing volunteer work and the food bank was a real good place to come because I retired and boredom was setting in at home. I was taking care of my parents and my wife’s mother, and then when they passed I had more time free, so I come on Tuesdays and Thursdays.

 

I think some people don’t realize just how many people there are who need help to get through the month. They just don’t understand people’s problems, and we see it when they come in. Again, it goes back to making it to the end of the month and the salary income they have. We do get immigrants that come here who are looking for jobs and trying to get started, and it helps all those kinds of folks. We even have people who just come once or twice, because like when the state had their furlough thing, I remember one couple that came in and both of them worked at the state and they each lost 15 percent of their income and they got near the end of the month and didn’t have any food. He didn’t want to come in, but like we explained to him, that’s why we’re here. He literally had tears in his eyes when he went to his car.

 

And so we run into a lot of people like that, and then there are a lot of people who just need the help to get through the month. We don’t supply enough for the whole month, but it’s enough to get them over the hump.