Norristown food pantry unveils new look
Kary LaFors, left, and Marylou Gross helped celebrate the opening of the remodeled Community Interfaith pantry in Norristown on Sunday, June 5, 2016. Photo by Gary Puleo.
NORRISTOWN >>Thanks to recent renovations to the Community Interfaith of Central Montgomery County pantry at Grace Lutheran Church, clients now have a more elegant system that is closer to a real shopping experience.
“It’s a lot more dignified approach to providing services,” noted director Kary LaFors, leading the way through the freshened up space with new flooring, refrigeration and shelving that is now designated as a “choice pantry.”
“Plus, families now get only the food they want. It’s a supplement to food stamps, and we serve the west side of Norristown.”
Canned goods and other items are color-coded either pink, yellow or orange.
With the old system, volunteers would bag the goods and just hand them over to families.
Now clients get to wheel a shopping cart through the store and pick their groceries from non-perishables and some refrigerated items.
On Sunday afternoon Grace Lutheran Church hosted a celebration party for the revitalized pantry as a way of thanking the many volunteers who keep the operation going.
Seventeen churches contribute to the pantry, which also receives food from government programs, businesses and Wawa stores of Jeffersonville, Audubon and King of Prussia.
“When this opened it was a standard pantry and when families would come in we gave them food based on the size of the family,” LaFors noted. “Now they just go through and pick out what they want, instead of someone handing them a box filled with things they may not use.”
The pantry is open at 506 Haws Ave., Norristown, from 8:30 to 11 a.m. Monday, Thursday and Saturday.
“The government says you can come once a month to get food, but with donated food there are no restrictions, and we get a lot of donated food, so we’re able to be open more hours,” said LaFors , explaining that the conversion was accomplished on just under $8,000, and was made possible by Grace Lutheran donating the use of another storeroom for the food.
Through its affiliation with the nonprofit Philabundance, the pantry receives fresh produce every Monday, which volunteers then deliver for distribution at Willow School and Calvary Baptist Learning Center.
From Gary Puleo. (2016 June 5). The Times Herald. Norristown food pantry unveils new look. Retrieved from: http://www.timesherald.com/general-news/20160605/norristown-food-pantry-unveils-new-look
HealthSpark Foundation helped to support the renovations necessary to transition this food pantry into a choice model.