From Tuesday’s Wall Street Journal (Subscription required):
This Thursday, in a parish hall not far from the New Jersey town green where George Washington once made his winter headquarters, as many as 300 people will gather for their Thanksgiving meal. Some will be homeless, some will be mentally ill, some will be old, and some will be folks and families who have just hit a hard patch. For all of them, Morristown’s Community Soup Kitchen and Outreach Center is one of the few blessings they can count on.
In many ways, this soup kitchen illustrates Tocqueville’s point about the American genius for voluntary association. Having started out in a local Episcopal church, it has grown into a network that links restaurants, corporate sponsors and community groups with volunteers from nearly three dozen church congregations, including this reporter’s. The result is a hot meal to anyone who comes to the door each noon, no questions asked.
This the men and women of the Community Soup Kitchen have provided for 26 years, not once missing a day. Now comes a challenge greater than any snowstorm or power outage. Earlier this year, the Morristown Division of Health ruled that henceforth the soup kitchen would be considered a “retail” food establishment under New Jersey law.
From that single word far-reaching consequences have flowed. In a column for a local blog, Ray Friant, a volunteer from the Morristown United Methodist Church, called the rule “crazy.” Over Sunday breakfast at a local diner, Mr. Friant, his wife, Emmy Lu, and another church couple who also volunteer at the kitchen, Barbara and Jim Morris, spell out what they mean by crazy.
Most obvious is the higher cost: at least $150,000 more a year. To meet this increase, the kitchen is asking each participating church to up its own contribution. Some congregations don’t have the money. For those that do, it will mean less for some other need.
Much of this cost results from a new prohibition on people donating food they’ve prepared at home. For those on the giving end, often this was the only way they could participate, so eliminating their contributions means eliminating volunteers. For those on the receiving end, it means no more homemade meat loaf, lasagna, cakes and so forth.
All, of course, in the name of food safety. Still, one suspects that when a co-worker brings a tin of Christmas cookies to a friend inside Morristown’s Division of Health, those cookies are not forbidden because they do not come wrapped from a supermarket or approved restaurant. Yet this is precisely the restriction these officials have imposed on men, women and children whose only hope for a home-baked cookie might be at the soup kitchen.
Finally, there’s the utter soullessness of the thing. For example, many of the women would bring their own aprons from home. No more. Now it’s all latex gloves, throw-away aprons, and a ban on food servers even entering the kitchen. In short, more institutional cafeteria than Grandma’s house…
The column goes on, but you get the point. If you think something like this only happens in New Jersey, I know of a non-profit in Delaware that had a similar prohibition placed on it, negatively impacting its religious purpose.
Government has a necessary purpose. Keeping food from the poor and needy is not one of them.
At the heart of the ridiculous regulations is a punitive attitude toward religious charitable activities. No one seriously believes that church led charities are in the business of serving unsafe food. What is at stake is a substitution of governmental religio-pharisaism for true religion. The all consuming god of government is intent on stamping out any deed not done under the aegis of statism.
The cold and icy god of government cannot duplicate the love of the church, whose motivation in feeding the poor and giving a cup of cold water to the thirsty is done in the name of Christ; from a heart of divine love for the needy.
The charities targeted by the government need to resist, to rise up in indignant protest against the intrusion of the state into their affairs, not meekly accept the regulation of the expression of their good works done by faith.
Have you checked into the incidents of food poisoning at homeless shelters? Would you eat at a restaurant that was not obliged to follow government regulations? Is there some reason it’s okay to feed needy people using a lesser standard than we oblige Burger King to follow? How about if your child brings home a nice bowl of homemade potato salad from a stranger – would you and your family chow down? I have a feeling most of us would not touch anonymous food prepared by strangers.
Trying to make this into some kind of a government war on religion or charity is way off the mark. Next time you see a restaurant advertising “We do not follow Government food preparation or handling safety standards” stop in, bring the family. Look at the historical data, the before and after Government regulation of food services.
Just because there is an opportunity to be “anti-government” does not mean you have to take it.
“I have a feeling most of us would not touch anonymous food prepared by strangers.”
My, my. Aren’t we exacting. The picky end of all social life, I’d wager…
I guess Bill has never been an guest at someone’s home; never has eaten at a church dinner; never has invited an anonymous stranger to a BBQ; never has given a neighbor’s child a free homemade hamburger. “here Billy. Take this Mac quarter pounder. We don’t do anonymous food here at MY home. No indeedy.”
I would bet Bill would want the government to provide rules for safe food for each and every American home, complete with a SWAT team ready to pounce on anonymous backyard barbeques whose sweaty cooks violate standards. “Stop that unregulated maniac!! He’s doing pulled pork in the bafck yard!!”
I would even bet Bill would approve of the SWAT team carrying off fat kids whose parents have overfed them–oh, wait, that’s already happened!
I can just see him:
Scene 1: “Hi, there. I’m Bill. I just came along with John, who invited me to your cookout. I hope you aren’t offended, but I don’t want any of your anonymous food cooked by strangers, even though the grilled kielbasa smells pretty good… I’ve brought along a Big Mac to eat, just to be sure I don’t get food poisoning from your stuff.”
Scene II: “Hi there. I’m Bill. It was nice of you to invite me to your church dinner, but I’m afrain I don’t eat anonymously cooked food like that potato sald there. And, oh my, I see fried chicken. And how long has that macaroni sald been out–you know, mayonnaise turns bad so quickly. Anyway, I brought my own Taco Bell salad bowl, as I don’t want to get sick.”
Scene III: “Hi there. I’m Bill. It was nice of you to ask me to the neighborhood Christmas party, but I’m afraid I’ll have to turn down that fruitcake you made. You see, I don’t eat anonymously prepared food. How do I know but that you have a dirty kitchen with cockroaches? What?? You’re offended?”
Scene IV: Bill arrives at the company party, which has catered food prepared by an anonymous source…
Just funning, Bill. Don’t be offended.
Merry Christmas. Be sure to get that regulated Arby’s beef sandwich before you go to the party.
Hope the alcoholic drinks are still OK.
.
I think the comment above used one too many Bills. 30 would have been fine. Otherwise, very entertaining.
I did mention your concerns- “What is at stake is a substitution of governmental religio-pharisaism for true religion. The all consuming god of government is intent on stamping out any deed not done under the aegis of statism.” – to a friend of mine who is a government food inspector.
She said she doesn’t know about religio-pharisaism being substituted for true religion in regard to her ongoing inspection of food served to the public, but she will keep an eye out for it.