A Flurry of Feet: Walking Together at ICA
Written by Anne Groton
It’s Tuesday, 12:30pm. I arrive at ICA and enter the building to the bustle of feet all around. Shoppers shopping, helpers helping, sorters sorting, stockers stocking, deliverers delivering, administrators administrating, food coming in, food going in carts to take home. A flurry of feet!
I’ve filled this Tuesday slot since December of 2021. In the ICA volunteer pool, I am a baby volunteer, many of our volunteers are at 10, 15, 20+ years of service! The continuously updated ICA website is loaded with pie charts, statistics, and ways to help and receive help so I’ll let you go there for the facts while I offer some stories.
On our shift at ICA, my volunteer peers and I sort through watermelon totes filled with bags of food and stock the shelves. We have regular donations from local grocers, bakeries, pet stores, businesses, organizations, food drives, and donations from individuals who drop by our garage. Through the donations, we see care. People who care, providing what they can.
Donations are collected by volunteer drivers each day and we have a garage where people and organizations can drop off food and supplies. While sorting, we hear the doorbell ring. I’m probably the person who most enjoys answering the door because I like to meet people and hear their stories. They often have stories. When I press the button to open the big garage door, I first see feet. Real feet and metaphor feet; the feet of neighbors helping neighbors, the feet of Jesus. As the door rises, a full body and face appear, donations in hand.
I’ve opened the door to the feet of a grandfather and his grandson who went to the store to buy what they needed and selected items for our neighbors at ICA. The grandson chose fun flavors of toothpaste and fruity smelling shampoo because kids like fun flavors and fruity smells.
One afternoon, the door opened to a woman with over a dozen cases of cat food to donate. Her cat had just died, I asked, “please, tell me about her.” Emily was a snuggler and lived 21 years. (I must admit having a few question marks in my head of buying in bulk for a cat of that age!) It eased the woman’s sorrow to share her kitty’s extra food with our neighbors’ pets.
With the delay of SNAP this fall, we had an overwhelming response. I opened the door to a couple who brought in three bags of groceries. The couple receives food support but the husband is “very savvy at making food go a long way” so they wanted to share what they could with ICA.
In October, I opened the door to reveal the feet, then face, of a fellow sports parent from my son’s football years. She saw me and grew very teary. Her mother died the day before, just two days after they’d gone grocery shopping together. We gratefully received those blessed groceries.
And last week, we opened the door to receive a donation from the feet of hundreds of elementary school children and their families. After seeing ICE agents come to their school at dismissal time, invoking fear and challenging feelings, the school community responded with love. They held a food drive for ICA to empower care and support for our neighbors. More than 2,969 pounds donated!
The stories are generously endless. How lucky are we each time that doorbell rings! How lucky are we to see feet!
Reader, you may have noticed the word “neighbor” many times in this writing. ICA was founded in 1971 and through the years has changed locations and grown in size, reach, and mission. In January 2023, ICA eliminated ‘food shelf’ from the name and added the tagline, “Your Community Connectors.” With that change, we now refer to clients as neighbors.
ICA has a map showing red and blue dots representing households who have donated to ICA and households who have received from ICA. The dots are mingled together. Several households have two dots, a red and a blue, donated and received. We are one neighborhood. We are feet walking together, led by love.