By Candy Meacham

Every Wed. and Fri. we deliver food to families who need it. In March 2020, when Covid-19 first reared its ugly head, there were many. Now, 9 1⁄2 months into the pandemic, those hungry numbers keep climbing. Stuck at home way more than I’m used to, I began to look for a way to help out locally without putting myself at risk. After copious digital paperwork, my husband and I donned masks and began delivering food two days per week.

On Wednesdays we do a run together for Miracle Food Network. We cram our small pick up truck full of food and pizza boxes and run out to a ramshackle trailer court north of town. There are 55 to 60 single wide mobile homes and trailers. Busted windows, sagging stair steps and front decks abound though many homes also have tiny gardens, potted plants, holiday lights or some other touch that turns a house into a home. We deliver to 11 trailers, approximately 28 adults and 20 kids, most from Central America or Mexico.

Shortly after we started this gig, I began to clear out my grandchildren’s abandoned small animal toys and action figures. Remembering my own childhood anticipation of a tiny toy buried like treasure deep inside each new box of breakfast cereal, one day I dropped an animal in every food box, two for trailer # 2 which houses 7 kids and 3 adults. My dentist donated some outdated tubes of travel toothpaste, which went into every box the following weeks. Then my friend Kathie, a dedicated volunteer for the city library, gave me some kid books, and next we began to distribute those. A retired middle school teacher posted a notice on Nextdoor, and I scored three big grocery bags filled with books – for free! In what I began to think of as my own income redistribution scheme, I began to haunt Little Free Libraries in establshed neighborhoods across town and cull a small selection of books from each.

Slowly we learned the children’s names, Mariela, Sofia, Flora, Gabbi, Iris, Alan, Karen, Carlos, Diego, Leslie, Juana, Rodrigo, Tristian, Reina. And they began to come to the door when we knocked or occasionally follow us around the trailer park on their bicycles. I learned most – though not all – of the kids spoke English and prefered English language books, but that I needed to speak Spanish to the parents. Some spoke an indigenous Guatemalan dialect, so we communicated either through the children or with smiles and brief greetings. One fine summer day I showed two little girls the latest books I had on offer and was rewarded with a big smile and a response I still treasure, “Me encantan los libros!” (I love books!)

I passed that commentary on to Kathie, and she rewarded me with more books. Slowly I began to ask kids which book they prefered out of my stash, then more generally what kinds of books they liked. Shy at first, they warmed up and showed up. One day at trailer #17, Juana asked me if I had any chapter books. I realized I needed to recalibrate and offer more than picture books. Princesses and dogs were poplular too. As we completed our delivery that day to number #52, the last on the loop, Jack glanced up and saw 4 of our little girls reading their new books together, shoulder-to-shoulder on a swing in the back yard. The following week Miracle Foods added a new family, and we learned that Diego lives with three uncles and likes sports books. At some point I got the impression that my book selection was, perhaps, kind of lame. Maybe I needed to look for graphic novels and include comic books. Kathie suggested coloring books. This seems to be an intuitive sort of process as I record impressions and reactions in English, Spanish and Mam, a Guatamalan Mayan language, which of course I do not speak.

Who knows where this will lead us? Fantasies of a future summer day find me sitting on that porch swing reading to Juana, Iris and Sofia in person. Jack thinks about taking Builder Boards – https://woodshop4kids.com – out to the trailer court and setting up a hands-on adventure. No matter. For now, families get food, kids get books (and toothpaste!) and we get the satisfaction of knowing and serving a new little part of our own back yard, a small miracle on its own.