Zsofia Pasztor: Finding community in the sharing of food

Published 1:30 am Saturday, July 3, 2021

By Zsofia Pasztor / Herald Forum

There we were — our Farmer Frog team — in masks, keeping 6 feet from other people, our covid manager walking around with a megaphone, reminding people to keep their distance and keep taking breathing breaks in the special designated area and otherwise to keep masks on as dozens of volunteers were crouching on the ground and bagging up loose potatoes and onions week after week.

We were handing the produce out to folks as fast as we were putting them in bags. The word spread quickly. Grass-roots groups, food banks, churches and teachers from closed schools were driving over and waiting in line to pick up some fresh produce. By the end of May last year, many people were without fresh food for three months. We were getting calls every day from people who asked to receive our fresh food baskets delivered to their door without contact. They were people who could not leave home. They were people in total isolation. Many were for months.

We helped everyone, and did not ask a bunch of questions. We made eye contact with thousands of people during the past 14 months in a deeper way we ever could imagine. Because we were all in masks, we communicated all our emotions through our eyes. The power of the human gaze is immense. Strangers became friends and we grew close to one another throughout the year without ever seeing each other’s full face or hugging one another. As more of us are vaccinated each week, it now feels cathartic to hug the people we worked so closely together under so much pressure and for so long. And that is community.

While almost everywhere our nation was becoming more and more divided, our community members who took on helping one another came together instead. No questions asked; no politics. People who came to fetch food for neighbors they never met before were making sure they were taking delicious things. They were looking at every bag of fruit and every piece of cheese as if they were shopping for their own special dinner. They wanted to make sure the food was good and perfect, and we could see in their eyes how they were imagining the joy their neighbors would experience when they saw the abundance. And that is community.

We are now moving into the second year of this service. Programs are shifting, how we do things is shifting, but we will continue helping our neighbors as all the wonderful people keep wanting to help one another. When I am greeting the arriving recipients, who are now our close friends and even chosen family, there is no doubt that our community will in the end be OK. We will get through this crisis. And we will be better for it because of the thousands of amazing folx who are willing to come forward and move mountains (of food) every day for their neighbors.

Our hope is that we can preserve what we learned from each other for generations to come. Community is not a mythical term but rather, it is people in action. In the after-covid days, I envision neighborhood gatherings around food, sharing traditions and memories where we participate without an agenda but simply to take part in our community.

Zsofia Pasztor and her husband emigrated from Hungary to the United States in 1989. She is the founder of Farmer Frog, a nonprofit that works to establish edible gardens at local schools.