Meet Your Neighbor, Tommy
Positive, energetic, and talkative: that’s how we would describe Thomas.
But he let us know to call him Tommy. We met Tommy at a food pantry in Enfield that also offers meals to guests, and Connecticut Foodshare provides this program with food and other support.
It’s known around town that the cooks here make every meal memorable, and that the food is top notch. Tommy values everything about this place – his relationship with the staff, volunteers and guests, and of course the fantastic meals, “This is some of the healthiest food around. For me to cook a meal like this and eat it and clean up after with a broken back and a broken neck, I couldn’t do it...I just had two major surgeries. I wouldn’t be in the shape I am if it wasn’t for this food.”
And while health challenges slowed Tommy down for a while, he managed to use this network of help to rise up from a very difficult time in his life. “This is helping me. I couldn’t afford any of this on my own. To be honest, I wouldn’t be able to afford my electric...my gas. On my own I would be...eating the bare minimum.”
This army veteran is as tough as he is grateful, “This is a godsend,” he says of the food pantry and delicious meals, “I was a nine-year homeless veteran. I was sleeping in my van. When I was first homeless, I didn’t know where to get food.” Tommy mentions the social services team he met at a neighborhood warming center and the encouragement he received from them to ask for help. “Being homeless and shy, you don’t want to open up too much.”
He worries about the other people he meets who are in worse situations than he has been, so Tommy chose to open up quite a bit the day we met him – he was “on a mission to help people.” He hopes his honesty will encourage others to ask for help when times are hard.
“You can’t get to the brightness until you’ve been to the darkness,” he said with a big smile. We hope that Tommy’s big heart and positive energy will impact many people in need for a long time to come.
