People Who Make
a Difference
A simple motto: Never let a child go hungry
Longtime food pantry volunteer has no plans to retire soon
BY COLLEEN LUTOLF
Staff Writer

Christine Murphy has culled a lot of memories during the two decades she has volunteered at the food pantry in St. James R.C. Church in Woodbridge.

One that stands out came about 12 years ago, when a child whose family received meals from St. James came to Murphy and asked her to help a family who lived in a shack behind the Pathmark in Hopelawn.

"This little girl came up to me, she was about 8, and asked if we had any more food," she said. "She wanted it for the homeless family for Thanksgiving. There was nothing here so I went home, cooked a turkey, sliced it up and pulled into the Pathmark.

"I had to crawl through a hole in the fence, over the railroad tracks and up a hill, and there in the woods was a homemade shack," Murphy recalled. "I took the food to them. I went there a few times but then one day they were gone. They had just disappeared. It was quite an experience."

But seeing her Woodbridge neighbors confronted with poverty does not weaken the 87-year-old Murphy’s resolve to help them.

"It’s gratifying to know you’re helping people," she said.

Murphy has been making a difference for more than 20 years at the pantry.

And if the 35 volunteers she supervises at the pantry have any say about it, Murphy will be there another 20 more.

"If she ever retires, we’re quitting," said Stella Asta, a 10-year St. James Food Pantry volunteer.

The idea of a 107-year-old tossing around boxes of canned soup may seem unlikely, but to see Murphy operate at the pantry, located in the first and basement floors of a house on St. James R.C. Church property, would make a believer out of anyone.

Murphy was hoisting cases of soup up and down the pantry’s narrow stairs herself, up until two months ago.

Now she has to let other people carry the heavy stuff, due to a neck injury.

"That kind of bugs me," she said, "because I really want to stay in it. I don’t want to grow old. I don’t think I’m old. I went to an affair recently and all the old people were sitting around watching me move around and everything else."

Lugging 20-pound bags and boxes full of food is not the only way she belies her age.

"I still wear shorts in the summertime," she said. "When I die, people will say ‘I don’t know who she is,’ I say just tell them she’s the one who wore shorts and bobby socks."

Bobby socks were still a fad when Murphy joined the St. James community in the late ’50s.

"I’ve been a member of the parish 51 years," she said, sitting at her desk surrounded by yellow plastic bags packed with food for some of Woodbridge’s needy families. "I started to work in the library of [St. James] school in 1957."

Murphy moved to the food pantry in 1984, after substitute teaching throughout the 1960s and 1970s.

"It was in the basement of the convent then," she said. "It was very small. If we had 12 families that was a lot."

This year, 250 families were registered to receive their meals from the St. James Food Pantry, Murphy said.

"We fed 159 families for Thanksgiving," she said. "We are the largest food pantry in town."

The food pantry is her life. Murphy said her years there have kept her young.

"Absolutely," she said. "Being with people I like. I like to be with people."

"She likes to be with the cans too," said Peggy Catalano, the parish’s social concerns minister.

Catalano shares her office with Murphy’s pantry.

"She comes here early and we find her down here with the cans," Catalano said in the pantry’s basement.

Murphy walked into the pantry to find a giant tomato soup can filled with flowers on her birthday.

"It’s fun here," she said. "I like everybody here. It keeps me young. I say I’m going to retire and they all fight me."

Surrounded by cans of soup, tuna and vegetables, Murphy has sometimes found a can has more than one purpose.

"These are good stairs," she said, as she made her way down to the basement. "But the stairs before these — we had a can of soup holding them up."

But more than just cans are holding up St. James Food Pantry.

"She’s the backbone of this place," volunteer Marion Anderson, Woodbridge, said of Murphy. "She’s such a great lady. We just love her dearly."

Her motto is a simple one: never let a child go hungry.

"If someone calls the pantry and has children and says they have no food, I’ll come to the pantry and feed them," she said.

Right now, Murphy said the rest of Woodbridge could help their neighbors by dropping off some jelly.

"We have a lot of peanut butter, but not enough jelly right now," she said.

"We also need a new building if anyone wants to donate one of those," Catalano said.

Besides food, Catalano said anyone in the township who needs a walker, cane or commode may contact her office at (732) 636-6343, and receive one free.

But Murphy said none of what the pantry does would be possible if she didn’t have all the help.

"Without the volunteers, this would be nothing," she said. "I couldn’t do it without anybody else. We’re like one big family here."

Although Murphy threatens retirement, she said she’s not going anywhere soon.

"I don’t give up, no way," she said. "I come from hardworking stock. And that’s the story."

Asta, like the pantry’s three other volunteers who were working last Thursday morning, said she would never stop volunteering at the pantry — she loves it too much.

"It’s the greatest," Asta said. "I tell my mother, ‘Don’t make any doctors’ appointments on Thursdays,’ because I don’t give this up."