What's Happening?
Voices of Food Insecurity
Schenectady County is home to many people who struggle to make ends meet. They are neighbors, friends, and family. Because their hardships are often borne in silence, we might not always know who they are. But the need is ever-present. You can see it in the long lines at food pantries and the growing number of people seeking help feeding their families. Here are some of their stories.
LaVar Tillman, age 47, Schenectady resident
As a young boy, Tillman collected bottles and cans to get money to buy food for the household. He sometimes stole “because I was young and because I was hungry.” From the age of six until adulthood, he and his twin brother lived in Capital Region group homes, and Tillman excelled at sports - football, baseball, basketball.
“I lived in group homes because my parents didn’t want to take care of me, not because I’m a bad person,” Tillman recalled. Sports “gave me an outlet to be outside in the community. I made a lot of great friends.” When they turned 18, Tillman and his brother were on their own for the first time, and they struggled. “I was homeless for a while,” he said. “We slept in the woods for a period.” They got jobs, but it was still difficult. “I was working minimum wage jobs, 50-60 hours a week, just to try to maintain an apartment,” he said.
Throughout life, Tillman has turned to pantries and soup kitchens to supplement what he buys from the grocery store. He now provides for three children, ages 14, 12 and 10. “The hardest part is worrying about whether my children are eating enough for good growth and development,” he said. “They’re children, they’re growing, their brains are growing. They need fuel to grow.”
Tillman is developing an after-school program to help underprivileged athletes in Schenectady. He believes people can come together to help those in need. “The more we all get together as a community, the less we will have some of these small problems,” he said. “If you were running out of food and we had a group of 30 people, we could all give you one or two things. My main thing is unity.”
Darlene Geloso, 65, Rotterdam resident
In the 1990s, Darlene Geloso got a job as a teaching assistant at a local school for children with disabilities. The position allowed her to keep the same schedule as her now-37-year-old son, who has autism, and she stayed in it for decades. Then, she broke two fingers and was unable to work. Sometimes she turned to Street Soldiers, an all-volunteer, Schenectady-based, grassroots organization that gives away food, clothing, and other essentials, for aid.
When Geloso returned to her job, her employer slashed her pay from $23 an hour to $16.50 and cut her benefits. Soon after, an injury to her Achilles tendon forced her to quit for good. Today, her main source of income is Social Security Disability Insurance.
“I get $1,350 a month, which converts to $8.35 an hour,” Geloso said. “My son is disabled and gets $935 a month. It does not go far. You have to pay rent, food, gas, utilities and insurance. It means making choices about what you’re going to pay for.”
Geloso is now selling health products from home but says she risks losing her benefits if she makes too much money. “You have to worry about going over the income limit,” she said. “So if you try to improve yourself or you get a second job, it kicks you off your support. So you’re worse off than before.”
Too many people are one emergency away from poverty, Geloso said. “In the richest country in the world, this should not be happening,” she said. “There’s enough for everyone.”
Robyn King, 66, Rotterdam resident
Robyn King overcame food insecurity.
As director of wellness and support services at SUNY Schenectady, she has a good job and a good income, but her memories of not having enough to eat as a child are never far from her mind.
She remembers her parents treating her and her siblings to hamburgers and fries on payday and struggling to put food on the table at other times. “Right before payday, sometimes we’d be having white bread broken up in a bowl with milk on it for dinner and a little sugar,” King recalled.
King was a single parent to two girls, and in 1990, she decided to go to college full-time so her children could benefit from a more financially secure life. It wasn’t easy, even with support. She received food stamps and had Section 8 housing, but also earned minimum wage at a part-time job. “There was never really enough,” she said.
“I had to once again tap into my skills of stretching what I could,” King said. “The kids always ate first. I remember a really low point when I only had two packages of Ramen to feed my kids. And I made the two packages of ramen. I considered making only one, but I made both of them. I split the noodles for them. So they each got a package of ramen noodles, and I drank the broth.”
Her college education and subsequent job at SUNY Schenectady changed her life, King said. But she still worries that there won’t be enough. “Food insecurity is a trauma,” she said. “It’s something that stays with you.”
She added, “Sometimes people have the erroneous belief that if you are food insecure, you will always be food insecure, and if you are poor now, you will always be poor. My motivation is to provide hope, to provide a light for people, that it does not have to be your lot in life.”
