Transcript:
Gregory Bruce:
We live in a world that sometimes you slip and fall. Sometimes you fall and you can’t get up. Sometimes you go down and then you stay down.
I fell on very, very bad hard times, and I wound up for about eighteen months living in the subway.
There are certain people who think that to accept food for free is almost criminal.
And, of course, they don’t know.
You know, they they don’t they don’t know what hunger is. For me, being hungry is literally standing on 2nd Avenue at 4:00 AM waiting to steal bread from somebody who’s gonna deliver to a restaurant.
And I’m not ashamed to say that I don’t know where I would be had I not walked in this door.
What the Food Bank for New York City means for me is life.
It’s very simple. It’s brought me back to life for real.
I just love to be able to dress well. Fashion does mean a great deal to me. And I said to myself, you know what? I probably could make a bow tie. I’ve been wearing them long enough to in order to stay alive, I sell bow ties. There’s always more where this came from.
The way the Food Bank [For NYC] staff has treated me is with generosity.
There’s empathy all over the place. They know my name.
They know that I’m not a vegetarian – You know, they know me.
The one thing that I would want anyone to take away from my story is that this is only one story. There are hundreds of people, thousands, you know, all over the city who are getting help just like I got help because of people like you. Somebody once said, you know, money can’t buy you love, but money can buy you food.
And in some communities, food is love. That’s how you love people. You give them food.
