Meet Josiah
“I would tell people that hundreds of families could go without eating. ‘Put yourself in that place…and then come out on Saturdays.’ ”
Josiah Rogers and his grandmother arrived at a Grassroots Grocery Produce Party in June 2022. They have never stopped coming.
When recalling when his grandmother first suggested he come to the Produce Party, Josiah smiles: “I'm like, all right, fine. It could be a good thing to shave some time off the day.”
It wasn't long into that first party that Josiah's feelings changed radically.
My mom always stressed to me how important it was for me to go out and try new things, defend who or what I care about and to stay persistent no matter how hard things got for me.”
“I’m like oh my gosh, that food would have been thrown away. Someone could have eaten this. And suddenly I realize that I'm helping, putting that food–that would have been in the trash–on someone's plate.”
Now every week, Josiah and his grandmother can be found working, organizing, helping making the Produce Party run.
A few weeks before I’m writing this, we stand in the midst of a Produce Party. It’s an icy cold day in February 2024. Josiah is holding a huge carton of cabbage, and in the distance the tall towers of Housing Authority buildings loom where some of this produce may very well soon be delivered. From this parking lot, straight into the community.
We are both looking at those buildings.
10,000 pounds of food to the community
“You know,” Josiah says. “When I think about what I would say to somebody about coming to this Produce Party, I'd ask them to look at those buildings. I would definitely tell them about how, like in that truck that we unload every week, there's over 10,000 pounds of food. And I feel like hearing that very large number will make them think, ‘wow, all that's getting thrown away, like that's hundreds of families, maybe right over there, that are going to go without eating.’ Put yourself in that place…And then come out on Saturdays.”
I ask whether the problem of food insecurity is so big here in New York, that this might seem like a daunting job? Josiah isn't having any of it.
“No. That’s not how I think about it. My mom always stressed to me how important it was for me to go out and try new things, defend who or what I care about and to stay persistent no matter how hard things got for me.”
“Even when I thought I was powerless against something, I’d do my best to get back on my feet and overcome whatever was troubling me. When I was younger, I didn’t think too much about it. But as I’ve grown older, I can feel my confidence growing, and I feel ready to take on anything when I wake up in the morning. I have her to thank for that.”
EMTs and Grassroots Grocery
Josiah, a senior at Mount Saint Michael, is focused on electrical engineering and robotics. He has some ideas for apps and data management that Grassroots Grocery might use.
Then he tells me that he is in a training program for EMTs working the ambulances, a program where his school, Mount Saint Michael, partners with the Einstein Medical School here in the Bronx. I'm intrigued; what’s it like?
“The training takes place at a hospital in Morris Park. We are in an ambulance learning how to put a patient into different equipment in case of an emergency. They have CPR mannequins for us to practice on. We might review what we've learned or it will be a practical activity, say, how to patch a wound.”
And now I'm beginning to understand what Josiah is doing here, week after week, what drives him to volunteer, what keeps him coming. He says:
“EMT is like Grassroots, where in both activities I'm either helping someone or learning how to help someone in the future. Just being able to have some sort of significance when it comes to helping someone who's injured or just putting food on their plate, it makes me really happy.”