“The number has increased tremendously,” says Shamshad, a volunteer at the IRIS Food Pantry since the fall of 2008. “You see a lot of new faces and new families coming in. We are serving a huge community out there now. Friends are telling friends. Every week you meet new people.”

 

For refugees and other immigrants visiting the Food Pantry on Wednesdays, Shamsad, who is Muslim, is the public face—and the human heart—of the operation.   She’s not just handing out bags. She’s touching people’s lives.

 

“My role is to make sure that everyone is able to get a part of the food we have,” she says. “If we don’t get enough bags of potatoes, I break the bags and divide them up, so that even those who come late will have some.”

 

Support from Neighbor to Neighbor Lifeline has enabled the IRIS Food Pantry to provide food for its growing number of visitors. At IRIS, shoppers select foods from open shelves. Not everyone likes everything that is offered. And it’s not just a matter of taste. 

 

“We are dealing with a lot of cultural issues here,” Shamshad explains. “People have certain eating habits. Most of the Muslims don’t take meat from our refrigerator because it’s not halal. 

 

“Most of the Iraqis, they trust me. I tell them, you can take this and you can’t take that. I give them advice because I know the dietary laws of Islam. They can’t eat anything with pork. It’s completely prohibited. If I tell them it’s pork, they don’t even want to look at it. We have beef stew in cans, but most of them don’t take it because it’s not halal. Non-Muslims are happy because we have lots of meat for them,” laughs Shamshad. 

 

A sign of the times, some Muslim shoppers are now compromising their dietary laws.

 

“Some are starting to take meat from the Food Pantry because halal meat is too expensive in regular shops,” Shamshad observes. “I tell them what prayer they should say before they eat. It’s a short prayer, just one line, so this is something they can do if they can’t afford halal.” 

 

For Shamsad and the multi-cultural shoppers at IRIS, the Food Pantry is about more than food. It’s about community.

 

“Just greeting them, hugging them, making them feel like you are here to help them—it has a big psychological affect on them,” she says of the people she encounters every week. “Refugees are coming with a lot of trauma, so with a food pantry you are healing them in many different ways.”

 

“Last week, a new family came from Afghanistan,” Shamshad continues. “They have nine kids in the family.   I speak Urdu so I was talking with the mother. I said, ‘I can get you lots of suits for your girls.’ Now I have three bags of traditional clothing to give her.

 

“Our food pantry is playing a very important role at IRIS. I think we are helping our whole community no matter what faith background people have. Everyone is leaving happy.”