news-record.com

GREENSBORO — Diane Druce doesn’t read anything into the ones who wave off her flier.

“They’ll often come out with something,” Druce said of standing outside a grocery store and handing out a list of items needed to restock the Greensboro Urban Ministry’s emergency food pantry.

“And, if you make eye contact with them, they’ll have that little spark — like, I helped someone today,” said Druce, a retired AT&T employee.

Years of volunteering with Leadership Greensboro Seniors, who collect food for the hungry where people shop, have taught Druce that compassion trumps just about everything else, even the economy.

Today and Saturday the seniors will park their collection carts at Harris Teeter locations in hopes of replenishing shelves that are increasingly bare as more people reach out to the nonprofit.

“A woman came in with her daughter and a couple of her grandchildren and when I spoke to her she said, 'I’m trying to help my grandchildren, if I can I will,’” Marilyn Evans, a retired UNCG professor, recalled from a shift in September.

“And when she came back out she handed us a dollar. You are as grateful for that dollar as you are for 100 (of the) dollars because it’s the commitment — the willingness of people to do something.”

They remember the couple who responded with cases of canned soup and vegetables who said everybody needs to eat, and the woman who came back with a shopping cart full of food and took out only two items for herself. There was also the woman who rolled down the window of her car and handed them cash.

Jack Wagstaff, chairman of the food drive, said those who walk away without giving shouldn’t worry that the volunteers think the worst of them.

“I had one woman who walked by and when I spoke to her she said, 'I have nine adopted kids,’” Evans said. “She was already doing her part.”

Contact Nancy H. McLaughlin at 373-7049 or nmclaughlin@news-record.com