Those in need find help in Norristown area food pantries

NORRISTOWN >> The volunteers and managers at the Catholic Social Services (CSS) food pantry serve up healthy doses of “basic human dignity and love” four days a week to their customers along with the typical canned goods, milk, bread and frozen meat that goes into the shopping carts.

“Monthly we serve 900 families. They can come once a month on a Monday, Wednesday, Thursday or Friday. We average 35 to 60 families on any day,” said Patrick Walsh, the food pantry manager for Catholic Social Services Family Service Center of Montgomery County in East Norriton. “From a Catholic standpoint it’s about loving people. It is basic human dignity and love. That is what we are here to do. The beautiful thing about feeding people is that everyone can get behind it.”

“A lot of times the people doing the serving (volunteers) are also fed spiritually and socially,” Walsh said. “A lot of times the people getting fed are also volunteers.”

A 2015 survey of the food pantry’s clients found that one-third worked part or full-time and that half of the working people held two or more jobs. Another third of the clients are senior citizens, said Walsh.

Mike Melville and his wife Cheryl came to the food pantry on Aug. 1 with their granddaughter Kazmira, 2. Melville has not returned to work as a mechanic since he had a heart attack, he said.

“My wife receives SNAP (Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program) benefits but she won’t get hers until Aug. 9. Everybody has got to eat and it (food) goes quick. We have five adults and one baby in the house,” Melville said. “It’s a lot of mouths to feed and a lot of activity. We team up together and do what we have to do.”

Melville said the family also goes to the Interfaith food pantry each month.

“Our church, United Church of Christ, is involved with Interfaith,” he said. “Things are starting to look up for us. My daughter’s boyfriend has started back to work. My daughter is starting a new job in a jewelry store. Overall we are glad the food pantries are there.”

Families that qualify to use the food pantry must have an annual income below 150 percent of the poverty line. For a family of four in 2016, that poverty line was $36,450. Families self-declare their income and reregister once a year in July to qualify for the program, Walsh said.

Fifteen providers, including Philabundance, the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the Community Action Development Commission of Montgomery County supply the food items to Catholic Social Services.

In June 2015, Liz Peteraf, a former CSS food pantry manager, started the Choice program, which allows clients to choose their own grocery items from stocked shelves, refrigerators and freezers. Previously, the food pantry handed out prepackaged bags of groceries that were filled by volunteers from the food items that were available.

Eli Wenger, the assistant pantry manager, said the Choice program was “more like a regular shopping experience.”“There are a lot of people embarrassed about the (financial) situation they are in. It reinforces any negative self-image of yourself,” Wenger said. “When you come here you leave in a more positive mood because you see you are not alone.”

“We got display freezers and display refrigerators from the Sovereign Military Order of Malta, and that helps,” Walsh said. “It really opened up what we could do and what foods we could stock.”

In fiscal 2014, the organization distributed food to 10,441 households with 36,794 members. This included 3,515 senior citizens that received food.

Susan Stier, the administrator of Catholic Social Services, said the food pantry also connects people to the employment, parenting and pregnancy and veterans’ services at the social service group.

“There is a positive energy between the clients and the volunteers,” Stier said. “We are all in this together. I think it helps people feel welcomed by the volunteers. People respond to that genuineness.”

Patrick Druhan, the director of food resources and nutrition at CADCOM, said about $70 million in food aid is distributed annually in Montgomery County through the federal SNAP program. This is supplemented by the seven food pantries and nine soup kitchens in Norristown that distribute about $2 million in food each year.

According to Feeding America, an estimated 80,710 individuals in Montgomery County were “food insecure” in a 2014 survey, Sean Breslin, the manager of community food programs at Philabundance, said in an email.

Norristown food pantries serve an average of 1,297 households per month, according to CADCOM.

Druhan said the Norristown soup kitchens can serve from 40 to 150 people during a meal but most are open only one day a week.

“St. John’s Episcopal Church is open three days a week and the Hospitality Center is open for breakfast five days a week,” Druhan said. “They are a morning, drop-in center for the homeless.”

Another issue in the anti-hunger community is that frequently the volunteer programs are vulnerable to collapse when a key volunteer manager dies or moves away from the region, Druhan said.

The volunteer organization Advocates Against Hunger” spent three years helping All Saints Episcopal Church, 535 Haws Ave., Norristown, take over a Saturday community dinner from the Central Presbyterian Church when that church closed.

“Norristown is a town with a transient population,” Druhan said. “That means that people here don’t rely on their neighbors the way they would in a smaller town.”

Nanette LaFors, a cofounder and facilitator for Advocates for Hunger, said the Norristown soup kitchens have a good volunteer group that does the work but the food pantries need more volunteers because the core group of volunteers is aging.

LaFors said Interfaith at Grace Lutheran Church had used a $7,500 grant from the HealthSpark Foundation to change the food pantry into a “choice” service that allows clients to pick their own food items.

An anonymous donation of $10,000 paid for the distribution of fresh produce this year on May 14 and June 23. Only food pantry eligible families can participate in the food distribution. A third distribution will be held from 9 a.m. to 11 a.m., Oct. 1, at the Montgomery County-Norristown Public Library, she said.

From Carl Rotenberg. (2016, August 5). The Times Herald. Those in need find help in Norristown area food pantries. Retrieved from:  http://www.timesherald.com/general-news/20160805/those-in-need-find-help-in-norristown-area-food-pantries