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When her partner lost his job, they relied on Food for Lane County for a while: “There is no shame in getting help when you need it,” she says.
Luna Jones moved to Lane County when she was not quite 21, driving from her home in South Dakota, arriving with no job, limited funds, a high school diploma.
She lived in her car. She found part-time work cleaning houses, working at call centers, caregiving. She saved enough for rent, found a place.
“Hand to mouth” is the cliché she lived.
By her 30s, she had a partner and a young son. They both worked, and they were making it. Then her partner lost his job, and it was up to her to pay for everything — rent, utilities, gas, car payment, insurance.
At the bottom of the list, the one bill that wouldn’t come due at the end of the month, was food.
“People need to understand that sometimes, things just happen, and you need help,” she says quietly.
She found her way to one of the food pantries, and what she found on the shelves helped to keep her and her family fed.
“This is not about laziness,” she says. “This is not about taking advantage. There is no shame in getting help when you need it.”
Jones talks about her past as she shuttles between a Food for Lane County delivery truck and a line of display tables, grabbing cans and cartons and packages to restock the Springfield mobile food pantry. She volunteers here.
Today she has an office job she loves, and a budget that isn’t stretched to its limits every month.
It took years to become financially stable.
When she heard a radio ad about a food drive at her local Albertsons, she showed up and was asked to talk with shoppers about adding something to their carts that could be donated.
She realized that this was the same organization — Food for Lane County — that had been supporting the food bank that had helped her put food on the table.
“That was an ah-ha moment,” she says, smiling.
“I am now in a place where I can give back, and that is what I want to do, what I feel I must do.”
She signed up for the mobile food pantry that operates outside Bob Keefer Center in Springfield. It is close to her place of work.
“It’s a lot of work keeping the tables stocked, lifting boxes, arranging and rearranging,” she says, as she does all of that. “The more hands the better.”
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