Farah Khan had signed up to volunteer at the Northside Community Pantry because her school required twenty service hours, and the pantry was the only place on the list close enough to walk to. She had pictured herself handing bags of groceries to grateful families. Instead, on her first Saturday, Mr. Lowery sent her to the canned goods.

"Check every date," he said. "Anything expired goes in the gray bin. Sort everything else by kind. Low-sodium goes on the top shelf. People ask for it."

The shelf ran the whole length of the back wall. After an hour, Farah had covered about three feet of it. Green beans, corn, more green beans. Her phone buzzed in her pocket, and she ignored it, then checked it, then ignored it again. By eleven o'clock she had decided the job was pointless. Nobody would ever know whether the soup was next to the soup.

Near noon, a woman came through the line with two small boys. She stopped at the front table, where Mr. Lowery was helping families choose food, and asked very quietly whether there was anything low in salt. Her mother lived with them now, she explained, and the doctor had been strict about it. Last time, she had stood in the parking lot reading every label.

Mr. Lowery did not go searching. He walked straight to the back wall, to the section Farah had finished, and came back in less than a minute with an armful of cans. Every one was in date, and every one said LOW SODIUM across the front.

The woman read each label anyway, slowly. Then she smiled for the first time since she had walked in.

Farah went back to the shelf. She started where she had stopped, and this time she turned every can so that its label faced the front.