Nancy Coughlin, the executive director of Neighbor to Neighbor, recalls family after family walking through the non-profit’s doors with similar and seldom happy stories of how they got there.
Hung on a wall in the volunteers’ room, she keeps a photograph she received three years ago from a teenage girl to remind her what the organization can accomplish with one item at a time.
The inscription on the back of the photo reads, in pink ink: “The night was perfect! Thank you.”
The front shows the high school senior, one leg out of her car with a wide smile, arriving at her senior prom with the dress courtesy of Neighbor to Neighbor.
“She came in with her mom during prom season and was looking for a prom dress,” Coughlin recalled. “We happened to have one, which we don’t always. She was able to find one here and she sent us the photo afterwards.”
Coughlin compared the scene to a runway photo of Angelina Jolie stepping out of a luxury car.
“It was one of those moments where you go, ‘It’s a dress,’ but to her and the fact that she didn’t have a dress to go to prom in, we didn’t know if she wasn’t going to go if she didn’t have one. That made a huge difference to her, and enough for her to send us a little note.”
The act of kindness prompted Neighbor to Neighbor to start distributing prom dresses around prom season to those in need.
Founded in 1975, Neighbor to Neighbor allows people to apply for assistance based on need and the size of their family. Clients use a point system to pay for their food instead of money, while over 100 volunteers staff the food pantry and the clothing room every week.
“We always get a spike of clients this time of year, but they really need food all year round,” Coughlin said, previewing the holiday season.
She says that many of the local clients are also getting help from the Department of Social Services for the holidays.
While many families in need are steady clients of the food bank, Coughlin says that the range of clients span from the elderly in Stamford and Port Chester who receive food deliveries to Greenwich homeowners who have lost everything.
She cites a Greenwich family who recently came to them after their house caught on fire.
While they stayed at a nearby hotel, Neighbor to Neighbor supplied the family, among them a disabled son, with food, clothing and blankets.
“They were shaken, upset,” Coughlin said. “He was nervous about asking for help because he’d never had to ask for help before. Sometimes the people who need help the most are the least willing to ask for it. We recognize that it’s a difficult situation for them.”
Food banks and pantries didn’t gain steam in the United States until the 1980’s, when only around 200 food pantries were in existence, according to Coughlin. Now, over 40,000 food banks around the nation help those in need, mostly by feeding families.
Neighbor to Neighbor saw a 50 percent increase in the number of people looking for services during the recession, and Coughlin says that the numbers never went back down, but rather increased by another four percent this year.
“I think what something people don’t realize is that even though the economic recession has eased, it’s not helping a lot of people,” Coughlin said. “It’s really left a lot of people behind. A lot of our clients who were struggling in 2010 are still struggling. The jobs that have been created are low-wage, part-time with no benefits. They are retail and service sector jobs that are just not enough money to support a family. A lot of our clients are working two or three jobs.”
Once a stop for emergency food and supplies, Neighbor to Neighbor has now expanded its role to serve their clients’ basic and essential needs.
The food pantry, located in the annex of Christ Church, offers a wide variety of food including canned vegetables, loaves of bread and frozen meats for clients to pick from.
Volunteers often have to help clients with their shopping experience, but all are happy to do so.
“A lot of people contribute food around Thanksgiving and Christmas,” said Lyn, a 12-year volunteer at the pantry. “But we need them to contribute on March 3, July 2, any day of any other month—we need it all the time.”
Neighbor to Neighbor hopes to give away over 400 turkeys for Thanksgiving between Thursday and the day before Thanksgiving, thanks to donations from Kings Food Markets, St. Michael’s Church and other smaller groups.
“Since we don’t have enough room to store these turkeys, we have the truck come in and we give them out from there,” Coughlin said. “We allow a week before Thanksgiving for our clients to prepare their turkey.”
The nonprofit organization hopes to expand into new space given to them by the Church in the near future to accommodate all the donations and food they give out.
Whether it’s a frozen food item or hand-me-down clothing, Neighbor to Neighbor is always looking for the generosity of Greenwich which has proven itself to be helpful in the most dire of times.
“To one person who is giving, one specific item might not feel like a lot, and it might not be something they even want anymore,” Coughlin said. “But to the person receiving it, it can mean a great deal.
“When you multiply that by 60,000 people in town, that’s a huge deal. We can fix the problem. There’s enough wealth and resources in America, Fairfield County and Greenwich to fix the problem. If everybody does a little bit, it goes a long way.”
