Every Monday evening years ago, I would walk by a long line of people with grocery carts and bags a few blocks from my house on my way to my favorite farm-to-table restaurant. The line was for a local food pantry.

I remembered the pantry years later, after I lost faith in the world and in God for a number of reasons. I decided to walk in one Monday evening to sign up as a volunteer.

I sought answers to existential questions. I wasn’t there to give. I was there to take.

The pantry distributes food on Mondays and Thursdays, serving more than 100 people at times. It offers other services throughout the week, including boxes for seniors. The pantry director is a retired health care administrator, once a pantry client herself. She lives in the building upstairs. And she is the closest thing to a living saint I have ever encountered.

One time I asked her some of my questions. She told me to write them down; she believes all questions get answered.

The pantry and the building that houses it are owned by a Baptist church. Some of the volunteers and recipients are congregants. Some of us are not. Some of us are doubters. Some volunteers are also food recipients.

The pantry stocker is gruff and kind in his own way; he yells, “Coming through,” as he stocks heavy boxes of sweet potatoes and slices open boxes containing mac and cheese.

Some people in the country without legal permission have stopped coming to volunteer or seek out food for fear of federal immigration raids. One volunteer is a line cook who takes Thursdays off to hand out the meat. Others are retired teachers or come from law enforcement households. An older man arrives biweekly on his bike to hand out bread and welcomes guests with: “Next.”

Over time, they started hugging me hello. Now, I hug them first.

The recent pause in Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program benefits has created a steady stream of new recipients, keeping the pantry open beyond its two-hour window with lines down the block. Something unexpected started to happen as the challenges mounted: The pantry director’s phone began ringing nonstop with offers from community members to help. Nearly 30 local business owners took it upon themselves to start food drives, resulting in the biggest donations the pantry has ever seen.

To me, it isn’t a religious place. But increasingly, it is holy.

Over time, one starts to tap into a new frequency: Acting as an intermediary for a disabled neighbor who needs food, offering chips on a plane to the person in the middle seat who couldn’t afford a snack box and joining a community of volunteers to build a school library.

The pantry is set up like a grocery store with racks and shopping carts. Patrons choose from vegetables, dairy, meat, nuts and beans, pasta and other prepared foods like they would at the grocery store, an experience that treats them with dignity.

Volunteers know many clients by name and give them hugs. Recipients represent every demographic. Some are here without legal status, and some arrive at the end of their work shifts still in their uniforms. Some bring their children in their arms; others hold elderly parents by the hand. Others are homeless. Some only take what they can carry. Others have their own carts. They may be stocked up on something that they are offered and refuse it because they don’t want to take food that can benefit someone else.

The last stop in the pantry is a petite elderly volunteer with white hair who offers sweets and household items such as light bulbs.

Volunteers sometimes supplement the offerings if patrons make requests for items not regularly stocked such as suitcases or a particular flavor of soup. Recipients say thank you. They ask God to bless you. I usually respond: “Take care of yourself.”

I know some of their names now (I see you, Joseph) and say hello to them around the neighborhood. One patron grabbed my hand once, read my fortune and told me to make a plan, that anything was possible. Another gave the pantry director a check for $150 in gratitude. Another patron gave me a chocolate bar as a thank you. Recently, an anonymous community member left the pantry tens of thousands of dollars in a will, future seed money for new programming.

The pantry director prays over the volunteers before each service.

After a year of volunteering weekly, my faith in the world slowly started to restore like a cup filling up again, forces for good overpowering all the sadness.

The gratitude in some of the recipients’ eyes was another reminder. And the community’s endless generosity.

A few Sundays this summer, I joined other pantry volunteers at a local farmers market booth. I saw t he look on the faces of some of the market patrons when they heard “donate,” “volunteer” and “food pantry”: an immediate recognition that food insecurity in their community was their problem to help solve. They opened their wallets to give cash. They signed up to volunteer. They later donated food and clothing.

The other day, a recipient thanked me, as many do, and asked God to bless me.

As I moved to serve the next recipient, without thinking about it, without pausing to reflect, I answered:“God bless you too.”

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Ofelia Casillas was a Los Angeles Times and Chicago Tribune journalist for a decade. She has since worked across industries in corporate communications for two decades. She is originally from Miami and of Cuban descent.

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