It has been a while, since we provided an update on the food pantry and shared with everyone our results and the great work that is being done. First and foremost, we want to thank all of our donors—those who are so generous with their monetary donations and those who have responded to our requests with various food items. Without your help, we would not be able to serve our families as we are currently serving them. We have been able to maintain our “shopping model” providing client choice on perishable and non-perishable items. This also includes personal items and household cleaning supplies. Because of everyone’s generosity in the parish, we have celebrated every holiday with our families by offering specialty food items for their family dinners.
The food pantry has now been operational for 18 months. The number of families we serve is 160 families per month and we continue to provide 65 food boxes to the Haitian students in Charleroi. Our volunteers (adults & youth) have made a real difference in the families we serve. We now have over 100 plus volunteers registered and working in many different service areas within the food pantry. Our youth are the “rock stars” of our volunteer team. They have provided an intergenerational model for service that has been phenomenal and well received by everyone. All of these good things have brought us great success and allowed as to be sustainable and continue our services.
On the other side of our business, we want to share with you some recent changes in government funding that we may be affected by after July. The expectation in government funding at the federal level may affect our emergency food fund, The Emergency Food Assistance Program (TEFAP) at the State level where funding in the state of Pennsylvania in the past has been $13M annually. This program accounts for 75% of our families we serve. Additionally, the United Stated Department of Agriculture (USDA) may cut $500M in support of food banks nationally who have provided grants to food pantries. In Washington County we currently have 29 food pantries serviced by the Greater Pittsburgh Community Food Bank (GPCFB). We have been informed by GPCFB about these prospective government cuts and are working closely with the GPCFB administrative team on options moving forward.
As we move forward toward this period of uncertainty, we first want to ask all of you for prayers in allowing to continue serving those less fortunate in our community who are dealing with food insecurity issues. We have made a difference in the lives of the people we have served, and families have remarked how blest they are to be part of our food pantry. We are also conducting more community food drives and will continue to accept monetary donations. If you would like to make a monetary donation, you can send a check payable to “St. John XXIII Interfaith Food Pantry”. Your check may be dropped off at the parish office or in the Sunday collection. Online donations are also accepted through the food pantry website, john23foodpantry.org. Once you access the website you will see the section “Ways to Give” which will take you to the Q-Giv online giving service.
Once again, “THANK-YOU” to everyone in our parish who has been so supportive of our food pantry in so many ways. Our success is attributed to your generosity and kindness that you have shown in so many ways. Many blessings to all of you!