'Share shack' has helped feed Manville for more than 16 years

The shack has grown since the Briands first moved to Manville in 2006. At the time, their personal vegetable garden was producing too many goods for the family, and they decided to put a table out on their property to give away any extra produce.

A sign encouraged people to take food if they wanted it, or leave food if they had extra.

“In that first summer, we noticed neighbors dropping off extra zucchini and tomatoes, and as quickly as it was coming in it was going out,” Annette said.

Things went on that way for a few years, but the Briands wanted to help beyond gardening season. They added a second table with a few covered shelves so they could offer canned goods. Around 10 years ago, Annette’s former catechism teacher volunteered to help build a larger shed.

Annette said she never imagined the shack would grow into what it is today when they started putting out extra veggies in 2006. The Briands have had many experiences since then to remind them of the need for the share shack in Manville. Annette said some have caused her to reflect on her own internal biases.

Years ago while clearing the garden at the end of the season, she had put a bunch of green peppers in the shack.

“I watched this little old lady pull up to the shed in this big boat of a car. I don’t think she was 5 feet tall,” she recalls. “She had a bunch of bags, and she started filling them full of peppers.”

In an effort to be less judgmental and more spiritual, Annette decided to offer the woman more peppers from the garden.

“She said, without missing a beat: I can take as much as you have. I live at the Manville Manor, where there’s a lot of people without cars. I’ve been taking a lot, so I can give it away … you don’t know it, but your garden has been feeding the people at Manville Manor all summer long,” the woman said.

On another occasion, a woman stopped at the shack for a few cucumbers. Annette was again working in the garden. The woman offered to pay for the food, insisting she “wasn’t poor.”

“The sign doesn’t say you have to be poor. If you want some, take them,” Annette said. The woman finally agreed, and asked if she could pray for Annette.

“I was thinking she’d pray for me when she got home. No, she took my hands in the garden and started to pray out loud. I was just stunned,” she said.

In the days before the Affordable Care Act, Annette knew another woman who was taking items from the shack to sell at a yard sale. Annette later learned that the woman was a diabetic without health insurance, and was selling the items to pay for her insulin every month.

An elementary school teacher once told the Briands that her students were talking about the shack in class and were hoping to grab cans of SpaghettiOs on their way home from school.

She has some patrons who only visit the pantry at night. “They’re ashamed that they need help. They won’t go to the food pantry, but they’ll come to the shack,” she said.

“It’s not just food that’s needed,” said Annette, a social worker who has seen firsthand the challenges faced by her neighbors. “If you’re poor and living down in subsidized housing in this area of town … it’s very hard to exist there if you don’t have a car.”

Since there’s no bus route in Manville, she said it’s difficult for people to get to the market to buy food. Without a car, the choices are limited.

“Manville is not set up to be good to the poor,” she said, adding that many people move to the area to get into the Lincoln school system without realizing the lack of public transportation and other resources in the area. “It’s really kind of sad. It’s not just the food issue, it’s a lot of issues,” she said.

Tom and Annette have seen countless people walking up and down Manville Hill Road from Railroad Street to Mendon Road to buy groceries or catch the bus.

“If we see a walker, we ask if they’d like a ride. We don’t ask if they need one,” she said. They don’t want people to feel shame.

Often, they’d have their grandchildren’s car seats in the back, and would stop to pick up mothers walking up or down the hill with a stroller and bags of groceries.

She didn’t expect the share shack to grow in the ways it did, but said she’s happy it’s still going strong. Recently, other residents have been posting about the shack online to spread the word.

Heather Hannaway created an Amazon wish-list, so that people wishing to donate can do so without remembering to pick up and drop off extra goods. The Amazon items are delivered to Hannaway, who then unpacks the items and brings them to the share shack.

Briand said she’s been “consistently pleasantly surprised” by the outpouring of support for the shack.

Asked how it feels to know they’re helping to feed Manville, Annette said, “We’re really lucky we have the ability to. It’s not because we did something astronomical. The cards of life worked out in a certain way, and we’re on the other side of it.”

Tom and Annette met in 2000, and had their second date at the Boston Common, walking around the park and feeding the squirrels. As a clinical social worker, she said there was a lot of responsibility on people to “pull themselves up from their bootstraps.”

“Spiritually, he was ahead of me,” she said of her now-husband (though she joked that they’re on-par with one another now). As they walked the park, homeless individuals would approach them and ask for spare change. Every time, Tom reached into his pocket to pull out a few dollars.

“The social worker in me said: you’re not helping,” Annette said, believing the people might make poor choices with the money.

“Can you tell me for sure, with 100 percent certainty, that that guy will take the money and use it on drugs or alcohol?” Tom asked. “Is it within the realm of possibility that he’ll buy a sandwich, or put 10 cents into a phone booth to call a treatment center, or put in a call to his family?”

Annette had to admit it was true. Tom then referenced a Bible verse about offering your coat if someone asks for your shirt.

“They asked for change, and he gave them a few bucks. He was giving them his coat,” she said.