This article was originally published in The Examiner on March 16, 2017.
By Eleanor Skelton
Staff Writer
For a pastor in Mid-County, the problem was plain to see, right there on the other side of his fence.
“I live right here on this back road, and so I see homeless people all the time pushing their carts back there, checking these dumpsters,” Triumph Church youth pastor Albert Clavijo said.
Homeless people wander behind the Plaza Shopping Center off Highway 365 and
US Highway 69 regularly, searching for food, Clavijo said. And the need is great in Mid-County.
There’s a food pantry in Nederland, one in Port Neches, and two in Groves, in addition to several in Beaumont and Port Arthur, according to the Southeast Texas Food Bank website.
But now there’s one more. Sort of.
Clavijo said he read an article on Facebook about little free pantries recently, which prompted him to create one in his own neighborhood.
Little Free Pantries came out of the Little Free Libraries, a movement in urban neighborhoods that asks passersby to take a book and leave a book for someone else.
Little Free Pantries are similar — take something that you need or leave something for someone else.
He and his friend Matt Kennedy, who operates the sound system for Triumph Church, built the box and set it up right before Christmas.
“I thought that was a good time that people would be in need,” he said.
He didn’t promote the little free pantry, but he said he sees people come to the box regularly.
We built it, we set it up together, but told nobody,” he said. “Didn’t say anything about it. I put up the sign, and before it was up about a month out, I had never put a single thing in it and it was always full.
“I would stand out in my front yard because it’s about two lots down from my house and just watch random people that I had no idea who they were, pull up, putting things in the box,” Clavijo said. “It was almost even cooler than seeing people take stuff out of the box. I know now that there’s people shopping on Saturdays, they stop by after with their extra things and put them in.”
He said that he and his friend may eventually end up replacing the little free pantry with a larger box or put something else next to it, because of the volume of donations.
“I saw it last week sometime go from about full to empty to full to empty about three different times,” he said. “I put things in it every once in a while, but I don’t put a lot in it because there’s hardly room.
“It’s overflowing. It’s always so full.”
Shelby Palmer posted a comment and photo about the little free pantry in the All Things Nederland Facebook group on Feb. 27.
“This makes me so happy and has helped me a lot,” she wrote, calling the box an answer to prayer. “I am very grateful [and] thank you for the shoes [and] mainly the
food.”
Palmer is currently homeless, she said.
“When I passed this box, my stomach was growling, the heat had me
wanting to faint [and] I came upon this box,” she said. “There was PB&J’s and water.”
She also posted a picture of shoes that she found in the box.
“Without it, I would have gone many days with no food,” she said in an interview with
The Examiner.
She said she leaves shampoo, conditioner and body wash in the box for others.
Clavijo said that he feels this is what faith should look like.
“A lot of times we tell people, ‘Hey I hope things go well,’ and it [reminded me of] a Bible verse that said what good is it to tell someone I hope you have a good night’s sleep and I hope your belly’s full, but you don’t actually give them food,” he said.
“People want to give; they just need an avenue to do it.”
He said watching the community give to the little free pantry and each other reminds him not to lose hope in humanity and the world.
“It’s hard to take credit for it,” Clavijo said. “All I did was take someone else’s idea, ask someone else to help, and then it became an awesome thing.”
Eleanor Skelton 