Volunteer Pantry
Survives Hard Times

A couple’s volunteer pantry in Newhallville has hit hard times itself as it keeps feeding people lining up for free food.

The lines haven’t grown any shorter on Thursday afternoons outside the Believe in Me (full name: Believe In Me Empowerment Center, or BIMEC) pantry at Dixwell and Argyle Street.

Crisp Bosc pears, big happy heads of broccoli, and sharp limes were all there for the taking this past week as former St. Raphael’s nurse Ida Wilson joined 60 other people lining up with empty shopping bags, and leaving with free, healthful fare. Wilson was looking forward especially to cooking some of the five pounds of white potatoes in crispy onions. ​“North Carolina style,” she said. The former St. Raphael’s nurse is now able to sit with patients only in occasional private duty due to an on-the-job injury. When her disability money doesn’t carry her through the end of the month, she often visits the Believe in Me (full name: Believe In Me Empowerment Center, or BIMEC) pantry at Dixwell and Argyle Street.

Social worker James Walker and his wife Barbara founded BIMEC with friends in 2002 as a drop-in and training center. It’s best known for its food pantry, one that gives ample fresh produce and meat on the two Thursdays a month. Up to 125 people from Newhallville and Dixwell — sometimes from as far away as Milford — form a line down Argyle Street.

In 2009, Joseph Conner returned from jail to find his wife gone and his life upended. Walker was able to offer him not only counseling but a bag of food, vouchers for underwear and toiletries, and transportation passes. Today Connors goes to volunteer every morning at BIMEC.

“What I really hate is when I can’t give them what they want,” said Walker.

But times are getting hard even for the Walkers, as they have been for their clients. The couple with a passion to serve are hanging on as a labor of love and repayment to the community, where the Walkers, who now live in Hamden, themselves grew up.

Since they lost a grant supporting the pantry in 2009, the Walkers and their board and small circle of volunteers must come up with supplementary money every month for meat or the vegetables if not enough is available at the food bank. Doing so is important for Barbara Walker, who sang to a reporter of the joys of cooking broccoli rabe with turkey sausage.

“For many people in this neighborhood, fresh vegetables are too expensive,” she said.

The fees at the food bank run to $400 a month. That, along with the more than $2,000 in monthly rent, have been coming out of their own pockets for two years now.

After having received the help of local foundations and several corporations to outfit the spacious offices with furniture, a security system, and refrigerators for the food bank, the Walkers have had to leave off finishing the interior spaces. That’s because the city and other expected grants have not come through.

“Every time we think about closing down, something good happens,” said Barbara Walker.

For example at the pantry last Thursday, a man came in, took no food, then simply withdrew money from his pocket. ​“He gave us his last $30. ​‘I like what you do. I’ll pray for you,’ he said,” recalled James Walker.

BIMEC is about to begin a new program for the children of incarcerated parents this summer. James Walker said he hopes the furnace and a properly glassed in facade on the front of the building can be finished before the hot weather arrives. Anybody able to provide those services or funds to support them can email the Walkers .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address).

In the meantime, Ida Wilson finished her circuit around the food tables. She asked for a package of the frozen turkey meatballs. One of the eight volunteers, several doing service as part of their re-entry program from jail, was happy to provide.

“I always put back what I already have. Other people might need it,” she said. Then she went home to begin cooking her North Carolina home fries.