Two Things: Sad, petty crimes force a difficult decision; U.S. Postal Service not fooling around (2024)

Super Thursday. Praying for rain.

The Rev. Ginny Wilder didn’t come to the decision lightly.

For four years, parishioners at St. Anne’s Episcopal and kindly neighbors kept a small wooden pantry at the church stocked with food.

Canned and boxed goods mostly. Soups, cereal, rice. Maybe tuna or beef stew. Non-perishables that won’t spoil. Simple, easy to prepare and, perhaps most importantly, filling.

Sustenance.

Congregants called it a Blessings Box. A small cabinet where anyone who might be struggling could discreetly pick up a few staples that might, for a day or two at least, feed a family and provide some respite from worry.

Recently, though, repeated and senseless acts of vandalism— misdemeanors that wouldn’t rate phoning police— forced Wilder’s hand.

She decided to close the church’s Blessings Box. Then she had to inform the congregation. And those who might need it.

“This is the first time I ever had to make this kind of decision,” Wilder wrote in an email.

A Little Free Pantry is exactly what it sounds like it is: a small structure, usually made of wood, about the size of a standard kitchen cabinet, and periodically restocked with items free to anyone who might need them.

Simple, right?

There are thousands of them in every state in the union and around the world.

Recently, the one at St. Anne’s began attracting the wrong kind of attention. Someone started vandalizing it.

Over and over, Wilder and parishioners would find the food ripped open and strewn about. The pantry itself was damaged.

Caretakers would clean the mess, and invariably it would happen again. The food would wind up on the ground in the church’s modest playground and attract ants, bugs and other pests.

Mice would no doubt be attracted, and nature being what it is, snakes might follow. And in areas where children play, that just won’t do.

So earlier this week, after much prayer and reflection, Wilder made a difficult choice and broke the news to neighbors via social media.

“It is with a heavy heart that I write to let you all know that St. Anne's Episcopal Church is having to close our Blessings Box for the foreseeable future,” she wrote.

Not that it required FBI profilers to sort out, but she figured kids were responsible.

The idea wasn’t to shame or blame. She posted to Facebook solely to inform as people who lovingly tended to it since the pandemic— and some who might rely on it from time to time— would wonder.

“No real story here — just a hard reality of kids being bored in the summertime,” Wilder wrote in an email.

It’s not the crime of the century; vandalism isn’t even the misdemeanor of the minute.

Shuttering the Blessing Box isn’t a permanent move. Wilder, ever the optimist, hopes it can be reopened soon, perhaps when classes resume later this summer.

But in telling others, maybe word gets to a parent (or other adult) to keep a closer eye on their kids and perhaps impart a life lesson along the way.

“My prayer is that kids will be better neighbors, and we can go back to the work and ministry of loving our neighbors as ourselves,” Wilder wrote.

Amen.

High-dollar reward on offer

GREENSBORO— Exasperated and perhaps angry, U.S. Postal Service officials have offered a reward of up to $150,000 for information leading to the conviction of the person who robbed a mail carrier last week.

Just before 11 a.m. June 20 — last Thursday— somebody pointed a gun at a mail carrier in the Stonesthrow Apartments on South Holden Road and took a key used to open letter boxes.

Try as they might, police have not as yet arrested anyone despite the standard pleas for help from the public.

That robbery came on the heels of others in Greensboro and Charlotte that caused some concern that an ugly trend might be developing.

On June 17, a Monday, Greensboro police responded to reports that mail carriers had been robbed at gunpoint— one in the Glenwood neighborhood near UNCG and others by the same suspects in Charlotte.

Patrol cops spotted a vehicle matching one seen in the Greensboro robbery and stopped it on Randleman Road that same day.

One of the car’s occupants jumped and ran, prompting a short foot chase. One suspect, identified by police as Jason Harrington, accidently shot himself while fleeing. He was treated for non-life-threatening injuries.

Three other men— Taijawan Cross, 19, Shaun Clark, 21, and Deonte Overby, 20, - were also charged in connection with the robberies.

Then came the copycat at the Stonesthrow Apartments, which prompted the USPS to take the unusual step of offering a six-figure reward.

Is nothing sacred?