Through a cracked-open window, food and hope for the economic casualties of coronavirus | Maria Panaritis

One by one, they are finding this place — people without food to eat, people with food to give, all in growing numbers as the coronavirus has dumped hard workers off of U.S. payrolls by the millions.

In just the last month at this place in suburban Philadelphia, morning after morning, more people from both ends of the economic spectrum have been turning up on the sidewalk than has been the case on just about any other day in the 30 years prior.

The hungry arrive with empty bags. Some cry as they poke through a ground-floor window and introduce themselves.

The others come bearing food as gifts. Some leave their name, others don’t so much as announce their arrival before depositing a box and leaving. No questions asked.

Here, outside the former Calvary Presbyterian Church in Delaware County, where a view of the Philadelphia skyline is just a block away, tragedy and charity now come together each morning in an act of human compassion. Here, people help people being harmed by fallout from the invisible virus known as COVID-19.

“How did you find out about us?” Debbie Miller, a mask over her face, asks when folks approach the open window leading to the Upper Darby Food Bank she runs.

The pickup window is only a few weeks old. Fear of spreading the highly contagious and lethal coronavirus forced an alternative to indoor exchanges: Miller ripped out an old window screen and cracked open a pane just wide enough to let food pass through at street level.

Through that window, some people answer Miller’s question with tears. They’re the ones new to the food line. They lost income as the pandemic forced much of the U.S. economy to shut down in March. They are men and women, fathers and mothers.

I never thought I’d be in this situation, some have told Miller.

“That’s what we’re here for,” the retired health-care worker will say, refusing to let the emotions rattle her. Then, the 67-year-old retiree and 30-year volunteer at this cupboard gets down to business: “Do you want peas?" she asks. “Do you want carrots? Do you want bread?”

She refuses to let anyone leave with food they do not already prefer to eat. This is called “dignity.”

Before COVID-19, it used to be mostly senior citizens came here. Guys like Charles Smith, who came by Tuesday. Elderly folks on fixed incomes. Maybe a handful a day, on any given day. On the donor side, maybe a handful of supplies would come in all week, too.

Since the coronavirus and its crushing blow to workers everywhere, several dozen people show up on each of four days a week. The number of donors finding this tucked-away place is growing, too.

“I just opened a box from Target that was delivered here with a box of spaghetti," Miller said Monday night as we talked by phone. I could hear her huffing and puffing as she leaned over the merchandise. “A one-pound box of spaghetti!”

On Tuesday morning, Elaine Vetre of Havertown was waiting with a box of food as Miller pulled up to the church for 10 a.m.-to-noon handouts. Later in the day, a van loaded with groceries pulled up for the second time in two weeks. It was from a single block in Havertown where neighbors had banded together to do this good deed.

The week before, I’d also been a first-time donor after finding the food bank online. Since Upper Darby has long teemed with working-class residents, I figured it would be hard hit by coronavirus cases among families on the margins of the economy.

I discovered in a return trip on Tuesday that I was, sadly, right.

Outside the long-ago-decommissioned Calvary Presbyterian Church where Miller’s parents launched the food bank in the 1960s, a line of people waited their turn to walk to a folding chair tucked between bushes beneath the open window.

One was 52-year-old Gloria Rocano. A nail salon worker from Ecuador, her workplace was ordered shut down as a non-life-sustaining business. She had come wearing a mask. Everyone in line had a mask on.

“I only have faith in God,” Rocano told me in her native Spanish as she prepared to load her car with food, “because none of us knows exactly when this will end.”

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A husband and wife behind her, both 35 years old, were also there for the first time. They had two sons, 12 and 9, at home. Mom was pregnant with their third. Dad has been out of work since the Norristown restaurant where he was a kitchen staffer closed due to the pandemic.

They didn’t tell me their names but graciously shared slivers about their struggle.

“We have a little money at home,” the mother said. “It’s almost gone.”

As shelves thin out after each morning’s work, Miller is rejuvenated by donations that keep showing up. Only once before, said the Drexel Hill woman, had she sensed the same kind of community compassion: After the 2001 terrorist attacks.

“After 9/11,” she said, “everybody was so nice and kind and helpful to everybody.”

Sadly, not for long. “That all went down the toilet,” she said.

Still, she hopes this time around it sticks.

“I’m hoping this will bring out the goodness in people,” she said.

To donate, see the food bank’s Facebook page or call 610-853-2481.