THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Thursday, July 14, 1994 TAG: 9407130135
SECTION: SUFFOLK SUN PAGE: 10 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY PHYLLIS SPEIDELL
STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Medium: 84 lines
Would you like to double or even triple your food dollars? If your grocery budget could stand a little stretching, then SHARE Mid-Atlantic has got a deal for you.
SHARE (Self-Help and Resource Exchange) is a national network that buys food in large volumes and passes its savings on to program participants.
For $13.59, you can buy an assortment of frozen meats, fresh produce and name-brand groceries that would cost up to $40 at the local supermarket. Supplemental assortments of toilet tissue and paper towels also are available at $1.67.
Anyone can participate in the monthly program and buy as many food units as they wish. There is only one requirement. Participants must perform two hours of community service (volunteer work of their choice) for each food unit they purchase.
SHARE is not a typical food cooperative that exists only to save members money, said Don Lam, executive director of SHARE Mid-Atlantic.
``We are a cooperative effort to build communities as well as save money,'' Lam said.
Many participants earn their two-hour service credit by volunteering with SHARE, by working with scouts, their churches and other community service agencies, or by simply mowing an elderly neighbor's lawn.
Paul Greggs, 33, a Churchland resident and youth counselor at the Chesapeake Boys Group Home, volunteers one Saturday morning a month at the St. Christopher's Episcopal Church SHARE site in Churchland.
``It really doesn't take a whole lot of time, and I love the camaraderie,'' Greggs said.
Each month Greggs buys one food unit to take home to his wife, a Portsmouth school nurse, and their two children.
Why does he buy SHARE food?
``Look what you get for 13 bucks,'' Greggs said, pointing toward a carton loaded with meats, fresh bread and produce that looked like it came right from a roadside stand.
``It just makes sense,'' said Deena Scintilla, a 45-year-old nurse from the Manor section of Portsmouth. ``It stretches your food budget while allowing you to try new things while you are doing something for your community.''
Scintilla buys one food unit a month. When there is too much produce or too much meat for her and her husband, she gives away the extras.
Older folks on fixed incomes make up the majority of participants who come to the East End Baptist Church SHARE site in Suffolk.
SHARE food monthly distribution days come at the end of the month, a time when those dependent on a monthly pension or Social Security check may find themselves short on food and funds.
``We do have a few young families with children, too, and the SHARE food helps an awful lot,'' said Dorothy Williams, 62, of Suffolk, the agency's coordinator at East End. ``I am so sorry that more people do not participate.''
Although the program has flourished in Norfolk, Virginia Beach and Hampton since it began in March 1989, participation has remained steady or declined in Suffolk, Portsmouth and Chesapeake.
``People think it is a welfare program and stay away because they do not know it is a self-help program,'' Williams said.
Susan Garnett, SHARE coordinator at St. Christopher's in Churchland, said the program suffers because people mistakenly think the food is government surplus or wilted leftovers that did not sell at local supermarkets.
Garnett, 33, and her husband, Don, 32, are Western Branch residents and SHARE participants.
Incorporating SHARE food units into their monthly menu plan is one of several budget-stretching strategies the couple uses to allow Susan to be a stay-at-home mother to their two young children.
``A lot of people have no idea what SHARE is, that it is really more like a food co-op where you are pooling your money and pooling your labor,'' Garnett said. MEMO: [For a related story, see page 24 of The Sun for this date.]
ILLUSTRATION: Photo by L. TODD SPENCER
Susan Garnett and Paul Greggs check over the food that will be
distributed in the SHARE program at St. Christopher's Episcopal
Church in Churchland.
by CNB