During the past three years, Community Pantry, which distributes
food bags to the county’s hungry, has steadily witnessed the number
of bags it hands out increase from 23,000 to more than 39,000 last
year.
The need is now and it’s increasing.
During the past three years, Community Pantry, which distributes food bags to the county’s hungry, has steadily witnessed the number of bags it hands out increase from 23,000 to more than 39,000 last year.
To help this growing need, Community Pantry recently received much-needed help in its efforts with a donation of $22,060 from the United Way of San Benito County.
“It’s getting costly to maintain what we have,” said Tom Larkin, executive director for Community Pantry, who welcomed the $5,000 increase from the previous year’s allocation.
As projected, Larkin said the number of bags being distributed to hungry families reach nearly 40,000 in 2002, an average of 850 bags a week.
Larkin said the demand for services not only dramatically increased but so has the number of walk-ins.
“We get about 40 people a week who just walk in off the street,” he said.
Community Pantry is a self-help program that supplements food to its qualifying members who pay a $30 annual fee for reduced groceries.
“Our members are working for it, paying for it and this gives them some dignity,” Larkin said.
However, the pantry’s policy on walk-ins is flexible. There are a few people who are homeless or have other circumstances.
“We give it to them because it’s the right thing to do,” Larkin said.
Feeding the homeless requires a special bag of groceries to be put together and contains such items as fresh fruit, bread, peanut butter, canned tuna, Spam, water or sodas.
“If they are homeless they can’t cook. It’s nothing fancy, but this way they have something to eat,” Larkin said.
Each month the pantry spends $1,635 on groceries from Second Harvest, which comes to about 40 percent of the actual cost.
“We couldn’t do this program if we had to pay the full cost,” Larkin said.
Community Pantry is also prepared for disasters, with more than $30,000 in its reserves that could feed about 360 families, Larkin said.
