On a recent afternoon Matthew Carey was inside the Foodworks food shelf in Brattleboro, filling paper bags with food.
He grabbed a stick of butter, a few boxes of macaroni and cheese, and some apples, and glanced back down at a piece of paper that told him which motel the food would be sent to later that day.
Carey is pretty familiar with the work that goes on here, at Windham County’s busiest food shelf, as he’s usually on the other side of the window picking up food for himself.
“Food’s been a struggle for me throughout a lot of my life,” he said. “I mean, I grew up poor myself.”
The food shelf is run by the local service agency Groundworks Collaborative, which had to shut down the food shelf and the rest of its services after Leah Rosin-Pritchard, who was a coordinator at one of the shelters, was killed. The woman charged with her murder, Zaaina Mahvish-Jammeh, was living at the shelter at the time.
“It is tragic,” Carey said, as he carried one more bag of groceries over to a pile near the door. “And with everything that’s happened it’s thrown Groundworks, and all their programs, for a loop. So I am glad to be here to help, as much as I can, especially in this time.”
The crime shocked the Groundworks staff, and a lot of the community, and in the days after Rosin-Pritchard’s death the Groundworks staff did the best it could to keep its operations running.
But Groundworks executive director Josh Davis said it became apparent in those first few days that the staff could not continue doing the often challenging work of serving Brattleboro's most vulnerable residents.
"We take our role in the community extremely seriously. And we also know that we needed to stop for a second to take care of ourselves, to pause for a minute to take care of ourselves.”Josh David - Groundworks Collaborative
“I think the ripple effects of what we're experiencing as an organization, as a community, is absolutely devastating,” Davis said. “And we take our role in the community extremely seriously. And we also know that we needed to stop for a second to take care of ourselves, to pause for a minute to take care of ourselves.”
Rosin-Pritchard was killed on a Monday morning, and later that week Davis put out the word that Groundworks needed help.
He called a meeting, and more than 50 people showed up from organizations throughout southern Vermont and the state.
And since then a plan has been put in place so that people can be served while the Groundworks staff takes a break and figures out how to proceed.
Kathleen McGraw, who’s the chief medical officer at Brattleboro Memorial Hospital, has been organizing what she calls the disaster response.
“So, the community has suffered a traumatic event, but certainly Groundworks absolutely has,” McGraw said. “Trauma recovery is a real thing, and they’re taking this time to do that, and the community is stepping up to help make sure that that can happen.”
The food shelf reduced its hours. About 50 residents who were living in the two shelters were transported out to motels, which the state is paying for.
The town of Brattleoboro opened up its rec center for people who had come to rely on the showers Groundworks provides, and the library is collecting mail for clients.
And McGraw says the nearby Putney Foodshelf is keeping the food services going in Brattleboro.
“So really there’s just a wide variety of folks who have stepped into this space,” she said. “We recognize that some folks have increased needs because of this situation. And so figuring out how to offer, you know, grief sessions, wellness sessions, just to really try to help everybody in this situation recover, or at least stabilize, from this tragedy.”
“I think a human impulse when there's a tragedy is, 'What can I do.' And rather than sitting with our grief, which of course we need to do, I think people really want to feel that they can be helpful."Lise Sparrow - Volunteer
Lise Sparrow is one of the 10 or so community members who take part in an online meeting three days a week to check in and make sure all the needs are being met.
And she's been organizing the volunteer list, which has almost 100 names on it.
Sparrow says area psychotherapists are offering counseling, and volunteers are doing everything from delivering food bags to making sure there are clean towels at the public showers.
“I think a human impulse when there's a tragedy is, 'What can I do.' And rather than sitting with our grief, which of course we need to do, I think people really want to feel that they can be helpful,” Sparrow said.
A temporary pop-up day shelter, which is run with volunteers, opened up at the Brattleboro Transportation Center.
And on a recent afternoon Andrea Arnstein dropped off some clothing and food, which she says was piling up at the motel she's been staying at.
Anrnstein said a lot of the Groundworks clients who arrived last week when the shelters closed are having a tough time.
“The morale is so down from what happened,” Arnstein said. “I mean people who were displaced, are displaced again. So it’s, you know, not only are they doubly displaced but somebody that they cared about is gone in a horrible way, so they’re dealing with that trauma, it's, it’s not good.”
There was a vigil held in Brattleboro to honor Rosin-Pritchard.
And about 200 people came out to remember her and honor the work she did.
Josh Davis, the Groundworks executive director, said that through the years he’s asked a lot of the other organizations in Brattleboro to step up and help at times.
But this ask, he said, to step in and completely take over for all the work Groundworks typically does day in and day out, was easy.
“Very early on we knew at Groundworks that we just didn’t have much that we could give, and we don’t have the luxury of stopping the work that we do,” said Davis. “And to have the community respond the way that it’s done, to organize, to take information from us, and then really turn that into a full-fledged plan, to support all the various and sundry ways that we work in this community is nothing short of spectacular. And so the bright spot in this just absolutely devastating loss is something that I’m incredibly grateful for.”
The volunteers will continue filling in to provide Groundworks clients services through May 2.
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