‘If I can help out one family, that’ll be a start’
Collection drive aims to give Food Depot a boost at time when inventory is low
Chris Loibl remembers the moment his neighbors saved his life. The U.S. Army veteran and family man had been struck by a mysterious health problem in 2006 that left him bed bound, in debt, out of work and nearly bereft of hope.
One day, while his wife was at work, one of his daughters came to his room and said she was hungry. Loibl recalls walking into the kitchen and finding no food in the cupboards, refrigerator or freezer.
“It broke me,” he said. “That afternoon, I seriously contemplated killing myself, hoping that my life insurance would be enough to provide for my wife and daughters.”
What happened next changed everything. That evening, friends, former co-workers and even people he didn’t know descended upon Loibl’s home in Velarde, all bringing food.
“I cried so much that day,” he said. “Knowing I wanted to take my life that afternoon, and than the incredible blessing my neighbors and complete strangers gave me.”
The lesson was not lost on Loibl, 45. Years after that crucial moment, Loibl and his wife, Rubina Loibl, are joining 130 other neighborhoods in Santa Fe County to raise donations and solicit food during the Food Depot’s barest months.
Chris Loibl is rallying his Bonitas Loop neighborhood on Santa Fe’s south side to donate 2,000 pounds of food before the Sept. 21 deadline in the Food Depot’s Neighbor to Neighbor Food Drive, an effort to restock the food bank’s shelves at a time when donations are slow. The need, of course, is anything but: The nonprofit provides more than 430,000 meals a month to at least
38,000 people across Northern New Mexico, including 13,000 children.
Jill Dixon, the Food Depot’s director of development, said in a June interview that donations lag between the end of the summer until November, when the holidays are on the horizon.
“Periods after the holidays, in January, and right around the start of school are the lowest times for us,” she said.
The Neighbor to Neighbor drive helps bridge the gap. A year ago, 106 neighborhoods participated in collecting nearly 250,000 pounds of food.
Neighbor to Neighbor organizer Linda Flatt, who organizes the effort with Jane Freeman, recruited Loibl to join after meeting him on a bike ride in August.
“His story — that’s neighbors helping neighbors, and it touched me,” Flatt said.
A visit to the Loibls’ home reveals a family that’s completely invested in the effort. Next to their front door, piled onto a table and spilling around the floor, the Loibls have stacks of boxes and brown paper bags filled with peanut butter, cans of tomatoes, Vienna sausages, beans and bags of rice they’ve collected from neighbors.
“This isn’t all of it; we still have a ways until the deadline,” Chris Loibl said. “If I can help out one family, that’ll be a start.”
Flatt, a retired schoolteacher, said while Neighbor to Neighbor is the largest food drive for the Food Depot, the group could always use more donations each year.
“Two-hundred-forty-one-thousand, one-hundred-sixteen pounds raised from last year, it’s about half a month’s worth of food for the Food Depot,” she said of the Neighbor to Neighbor effort, “and that’s why I want to do 300,000 pounds this year. It makes a big difference.”
Loibl, 45, offers an easy smile that flickers across his face often as he tells his story. Nearby, his wife, 42, has tears in her eyes when she remembers what they went through in 2006, but her voice doesn’t waver.
The Loibls said they went through bankruptcy after they were buried by bills more than a decade ago. But they’ve worked their way back — both now have jobs at Los Alamos National Laboratory. They were able to move to a house in Santa Fe, and Chris just bought a new truck. Daughter Elena has two children, ages 3 and 2½ months, and lives in El Paso. Their other daughter, Andrea, is finishing at Santa Fe Community College.
Chris Loibl said while they are more comfortable now, the drive to give back is strong because of that night in Velarde — when generosity in the form of food changed four lives.
“To lose everything, and then have it given back to you, better than before, it’s the greatest feeling in the world,” he said. “So if I can, I have to help a family.”