FOOD FOR HOPE

A loving tribute to grassroots activist John van Hengel, said to be the founder of the first food bank.

Van Hengel (1923-2005), who knew “the mind-numbing ache of hunger” from experience, found his vocation when, as a cook for his Arizona church’s soup kitchen, he discovered that grocery stores were discarding masses of useable stock. His gift was plainly an ability to think big; in 1967 he founded St. Mary’s Food Bank, which distributed 125 tons of donated food its first year. That led to Second Harvest (now called Feeding America). Van Hengel proved able to handle windfalls ranging from 5,000 live chickens to a million chocolate Easter bunnies—and he went on to help found more food banks around the world. Gottesfeld characterizes his subject’s early life as a “riches-to-rags” story, but he skips the causes of that descent and other specifics to focus on van Hengel’s achievements, faith, and humility before closing with a sentimental anecdote about a first grader who shook the then-old man’s “trembling hand,” saying, “You did good.” He did indeed. In the same idealized vein, Agatha arranges cast-out food in a dumpster with fussy precision, lays down chickens and chocolate bunnies in tidy rows, and depicts the joyful, plainly dressed White man joining racially diverse people standing in a food line, hauling bags and boxes, or gathered at tables. (This book was reviewed digitally.)

An inspiring profile warmed by its (not undeserved) sentimental glow.