I sat with Mike Barnes over a cup of coffee at the Black Dog Cafe because I had heard he was doing some interesting volunteer work with the Island Food Pantry, and I wanted to find out more about it. Barnes spent the next five minutes telling me about how the food pantry had just received a $25,000 grant from the Permanent Endowment for Martha’s Vineyard, and was trying to raise enough money to get a new refrigerated truck to bring food to the Island from the Greater Boston Food Bank. And would I mind if I didn’t include him in the story? “There are just so many people who are doing so much more,” he explained.
“Well, of course,” I said to Barnes, “there are always going to be people who do more, but I understand you drive a truck off-Island to pick up 4,000 pounds of food, load it by hand, and deliver it to the food pantry every week, and that’s not exactly an inconsequential effort.”
So, begrudgingly, Barnes told me his story.
To many on the Island, Barnes is known as the owner of Above Ground Records, which started in 1995 and closed its doors in 2014. After the store closed, he tried his hand at landscaping, and for the past few years he’s been doing property management, but found that he had some time on his hands.
Barnes’s mother, Judy Cronig, had been doing volunteer work for the food pantry for many years, and so he thought they might be able to use some help. The food pantry put Barnes to work picking up “purple boxes” containing donated food from places like Cronig’s and the Island libraries, and then he’d deliver them to the Stone Church in Vineyard Haven, where the food pantry is located.
About a year and a half ago, Kayte Morris, the executive director of the food pantry, asked Barnes if he could meet and unload the truck delivering food from the Food Bank, and then, when the regular driver quit, Barnes stepped up again, and said, “I can drive a truck.” Barnes is the son of Trip Barnes of Barnes Moving and Storage, so driving a truck is in his blood. The truck is rented and shared with the Good Shepherd Parish in Vineyard Haven.
For over a year, once a week, Barnes drives the truck to New Bedford to pick up the food from the Greater Boston Food Bank. The Food Bank is located in Boston, but once a week it drives three trailers full of food to a warehouse in New Bedford, where it’s staged for various charitable organizations to pick it up.
“There are all kinds of people picking up the food,” Barnes said. “I’m driving a box truck, someone else has a semi, and someone else has a Honda Civic. Some days I have to load all 4,000 pounds of groceries by myself, some days I’ll bring a friend to help, and some days the Sheriff’s Department in New Bedford brings inmates who are on good behavior, and they help me load.”
Barnes, an affable guy who makes friends everywhere he goes, said he made some great friends with the inmates, and wanted to bring them coffee and doughnuts, but the Sheriff’s Department nixed the idea because — well, because then everyone would expect that kind of treatment. Turns out, Barnes is a little particular about the packing of his truck. “I have a spatial thing,” he said, “If it’s not done right, I’d almost rather do it myself.”
Once the truck is loaded, Barnes drives it back to the food pantry, where there’s usually a core of people there to help unload it.
“I feel fortunate to be able to do what I do, and I’ve learned a lot about volunteer work,” Barnes said. “One of the biggest things about volunteering is that you learn to work with other volunteers. Most of the people who volunteer are retired, and it’s good to learn from their skills.” Barnes, who was born and raised on the Island, has a strong network of friends and family, but points to his grandfather, Robbie Cronig, as his greatest inspiration. “He would work 120 hours a week — why? ‘So my grandchildren don’t have to,’ he’d say. He’d help people go to college, pay for their operations; I want people to look at me the way they used to look at him.
“I’ve never had to worry about food, or where I’m going to stay,” Barnes said. “I just want to do what I can to help people who are less fortunate than me.”
