“Until You’ve Been in Someone Else’s Shoes” 

At Stapleton UAME Church on Staten Island, Pastor Buford Carter runs a supermarket style food pantry where dignity comes first—because he's walked in those shoes himself. "Thirty years ago, I was coming here to the soup kitchen and to the pantry trying to get food," he explains, never imagining he would one day lead the same operation. This personal experience shapes how he treats every person who comes through their doors: "We have to be treated that way… because we don't know what a person's going through."

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Transcript:

Rev. Buford Carter: 

They tell us, ‘Only but by the grace of God, go I.’ We never know what’s gonna happen tomorrow.

I mean, I’ve been on [the] line.

Thirty years ago, I was coming here to the soup kitchen and to the pantry trying to get food.

I started to come to church here. I became a minister here. I learned this whole operation thirty years ago, never thinking when I came in here that I would be doing this thirty years later.

Thank you.

They say you never know until you’ve been in someone’s shoes. I know how it is to get online and to get food and how you wanna be treated.

For our people, and…and we have to be treated that way.

Right? Because we don’t know what a person’s going through. Because it’s like this. If you go to a restaurant and the waiter is rude, then you don’t really wanna eat.

So if you are pleasant, then they enjoy the food more.

I was once a recipient. Now I’m a distributor. If it helped me, it can help someone else.

I know that much for sure.