Kelly Snyder said she was on a late afternoon walk down Main Street in Westminster when something outside of Aaron Robert Salon caught her eye.
A white table was set up with an arrangement of all sorts of food — bistro sandwiches, fruits, vegetables, snacks, and cookies — and a hand-written sign was taped to the window of the business encouraging people to “Please take what you need,” for free.
Snyder is a pupil personnel worker for Carroll County Public Schools and has been delivering public school lunches to local families who are unable to access these resources themselves since March 27, three days after schools closed due to the coronavirus pandemic.
This encouraged her to alert the families in the community she delivers food to on a daily basis of additional items that are easily accessible.
“They have shared how grateful they are for the Carroll County food for their children,” Snyder said. “The system is giving out a breakfast, lunch and a dinner item every day and they’re incredibly thankful for that. The school system is feeding the kids so to have additional food on top of that where the adults can partake in it and even just extra food for the kids is just making a difference.”
The salon has been in business for almost eight years and is owned by Lisa Sharp and her husband, Matt Barnes. They employ a staff of 20 who are independent contractors and Sharp said before the salon closed its doors on April 3, only five staff members and five clients were permitted inside at one time and customers were asked to sit in their cars and wait for their appointments to adhere to Gov. Larry Hogan’s social distancing guidelines.
The salon will remain closed indefinitely, until Hogan’s stay-at-home order is lifted.
“The worst part of it is the unknown because we don’t know when we’re going to open back up,” Sharp said. “That’s the scariest part. … With that, we’re still one of the lucky ones. I pay a mortgage on this building, we’re not renting from anyone. I’m without a paycheck and I work for my paycheck. I don’t get one from the business so that’s been difficult, but we still have so much to be grateful for.”
Sharp and Barnes said give back as much as they can year-round. During the holidays, they set out food for families who are unable to make it to the local food bank. They also collect coats, scarves, gloves and other winter essentials and hand them out to the homeless.
With so many local businesses closed as a result of the pandemic, Sharp and Barnes thought it would be a good idea to continue giving back. She said they set out their first table of food on April 5 and the response has been rather heartwarming.
“The biggest thing we’ve noticed is that people only take what they need,” Sharp said. “They don’t take more. People in general aren’t greedy. They take what they need and give to people that don’t have what they do. We notice that a lot when we do this at Christmas, too, if people aren’t hungry, they won’t take it.”
Sharp and Barnes do three shifts of food for the table in the morning, afternoon and evening and they wait until most of the items are gone to bring the table in and replenish the display with fresh items for the next round.
“Once the stores get a new shipment, they just get rid of the old even though it has a shelf life,” Sharp said. “We’re not giving expired food, it still has a shelf life to it, but they don’t use it anymore. It’s really been great, they’re not charging us and it’s been the effort of a lot of people to make sure everybody has something.”
Snyder and Sharp have yet to meet one another, but the women have something in common — a desire to help others during this trying time.
Sharp said she will call Snyder when the table is stocked to let her know it is ready if her families needed to come by and get some food. Barnes sometimes sets bags of food aside for some of those families who cannot get to the table right away.
“It just touches my heart that here are two random people in our community that are just helping and they don’t even really know where it’s going, but they just want to help,” Snyder said. “We’re a small county, but I know we’re doing a lot of good.”