In the oppressive heat, fear, food, and hope collide on Broadway in Chelsea

People are patient but not happy, because it’s hot as hell. The numbers on their wrists to hold their place in line start to smear.

The heart of Chelsea’s main street is torn up by construction. In some respects, their lives have been torn apart by the one-two punch of hunger and fear of federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents.

Inside the storefront church, a fan whirs as a dozen volunteers scurry about packing up food. The church chairs have all been removed and boxes filled with food cover much of the floor.

The need is great, the mood intense, despite the sign on the wall. “Worry about nothing. Pray about everything.” Philippians 4:6

“This is a social pandemic,” says Pastor Elaine Mendes, director of Revival Chelsea. She waits until the last moment to add refrigerated items like milk and eggs to the 30-pound boxes.

“It’s poor people. It’s needy people.”

Most are people of color.

The diversity is evident in the line, which is now so long, the end is not visible. There’s a Moroccan woman with a child, an Asian woman wearing a mask, a senior citizen holding extra plastic bags, and a Hispanic woman stoically standing.

Many hide their faces or turn around when a camera is pointed at them. One man flicked his hand like he was shooing a fly.

They are in no mood to talk.

“They think you are ICE,” says Mendes, who has been operating the food pantry for 10 years.

Mendes worries that proposed federal budget cuts will make the situation worse.

“Everything that I can see since January, it’s for the wealthy people, for the rich people.”

She refuses to mention the president’s name. “It’s the administration,” she says. “I don’t think this administration is looking out for the low-income people right now.”

The food is donated mainly from “Food For Free,” a nonprofit in Somerville. It’s the good stuff from Trader Joe’s, Amazon Fresh, and Whole Foods. Not the canned beef and vegetable government surplus variety, or the cheap ramen, or starchy mac and cheese.

Revival Chelsea sometimes supplements the groceries by buying milk when it can afford the expense.

There are three major food banks in Chelsea.

“It is not enough,” Mendes says.

According to a new report by Mass General Brigham and the Greater Boston Food Bank, the situation is getting worse.

“Very low food insecurity — the most severe form, occurring when an individual must skip meals or not eat for the entire day because they don’t have enough money for food — has nearly quadrupled to 24 percent in 2024 from 6 percent in 2019, pointing to widening socioeconomic gaps,” the report says.

Mendes’s worst nightmare is that ICE will just pull up and start grabbing people.

She says that ICE collaborators have intimidated those waiting in line here on two different occasions. (They also tried to attend an English as a second language class held here, Mendes says.)

“They didn’t come to talk. They didn’t say nothing. They came to scare the population and make people afraid. It worked. We had a lot of food left over because people were afraid.”

Here, Mendes offers anonymity.

“We don’t take their name. We don’t take nothing.”

The center also hosts numerous social and educational activities, like community gatherings for men and for the homeless, and yoga classes. There’s even a climate change seminar.

“Food pantry is my main program but then through the week, I can offer all the programs to make them feel comfortable and feel happy,” says Mendes. “I think the presence of ICE on the street breaks this peaceful way that we have. … I mean, they are messing up our job.”

At 3 p.m., volunteers push the boxes on a roller conveyor and open the door. They distribute the boxes one by one. They keep pastries up at the front to reward kids who have waited patiently in line.

On this Monday, 465 people (not counting children) show up and make sure they don’t block the other merchants’ doorways.

Once they get their groceries, some linger on the sidewalk and make trades. A vegetarian will trade hamburger meat for fruit and vegetables.

Others leave disappointed, because the food runs out.

“It’s horrible that we couldn’t feed everybody,” Mendes says. Mendes scrambles inside to the multiple refrigerators and finds a dozen eggs for each of the last 65 people.

She scoffs at the racial trope that unfairly portrays immigrants as dangerous.

“We have mothers, we have children. We don’t have any criminals in the line. I don’t think a criminal would wait three hours in the heat or in the snow.”

“No, it’s poor people,” she continues. “I’m going to help these people. And I think everyone should do the same thing. We should help each other. We should protect each other because one day we’re all going to need each other.”

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Stan Grossfeld can be reached at [email protected].