JFC Responds to COVID19 with Full Force

A cold downpour on Saturday morning could not dampen the spirits of the volunteer drivers, who made multiple trips to homes in about 20 area municipalities. For many of the drivers, it was the first time they had volunteered at the food cupboard.

Meanwhile, regular volunteers were busy inside the big Fellowship Hall at the Jenkintown United Methodist Church, filling bags of groceries – keeping a distance of six feet apart – in an assembly line that just kept humming. After each shopping cart was packed, the volunteers wheeled them out into the driveway behind the church, where the volunteers’ cars were waiting in line.

Much-needed donations of money have also been flowing into the food cupboard, according to Executive Director Mindy Bartscherer. Over the past three weeks, about $13,000 in donations have been received.

The money is being used to purchase food to meet an increase in demand and to deep clean the food cupboard. Money is needed much more than food donations right now. If you’d like to donate, use this link http://www.jenkintownfoodcupboard.net/donate-today

Thank you for your support!

This past Thursday and Saturday, a team of 24 volunteer drivers took bags of groceries to 129 families in eastern Montgomery County. The groceries held meat, eggs, milk, bread, fresh produce, pasta and cans of fruits and vegetables. Smaller families received at least four bags of groceries, and larger families received much more.

The Jenkintown Food Cupboard sends out out a HUGE thank you to those who have so generously donated their time and money to make sure the families served by the food cupboard do not go hungry during this public-health emergency.


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Feeding Our Neighbors Feeds Our Souls

By Dave Warner

Only a few days to go before it’s all over.

The Christmas tree is still up in the living room, and just this morning we took all the used wrapping paper to the curb for disposal.

But of course, that’s not what Christmas is all about – it’s about charity, really. That, and Mariah Carey, and her song, of course!

We try to make sure we give whatever spare cash we have to charity.

And most importantly, we volunteer our time and whatever talents we have to a local church.

Food is the issue, we give out lots and lots of food.

We routinely, by which I mean weekly, give out enough food to feed 300-400 people.

How they get along in life is beyond me.

One very nice patron told me last week that if it were not for our pantry she would literally starve.

Awhile back, a man who then attended the pantry regularly told me that he spent Thanksgiving and Christmas alone in his apartment.

His wife had died months before we chatted.

“How are you going to spend the holiday?” I asked him.

“Sitting on the sofa, watching TV, just as I do every day,” he replied.

His wife had died of a long-term terminal illness, and he was very lonely. We could give him food, and some chat at the pantry, but that’s all.

One of the most uplifting developments in our little pantry is that we have introduced good-for-you-food in large quantities.

Vegetables and fruit, and often times a cooking specialist who teaches our patrons to eat healthy food.

Not to reveal everything about our lives here, but I also sing in our church choir, and that brings pleasure to the choir members and the congregation.

Nothing like “Silent Night” to stir emotions.

But that ends in another few days.

Giving food to those who need it so they literally can eat is the most stirring thing my wife and I do all year.  

—

Dave Warner is one of dozens of volunteers who help out at the food cupboard each week. His dispatches are based on his experiences at the pantry.

A Source of Strength for This Patron-Caregiver

By Dave Warner

Over time, many of us volunteers have come to think of the patrons of the food cupboard as friends.

We get to know the people who shop here fairly well, sharing family news and bemoaning the weather.

 And these bonds are built quite often without ever getting to learn each other’s last names.

 Take, for example, a conversation I had the other day with a 60-something-aged woman, who needed a hand unloading her shopping cart. Her car was parked on a slope on Walnut Street, next to the United Methodist Church, where the food cupboard is open for patrons on Thursdays.

While I wheeled her shopping cart down that hill — no easy task — and loaded her groceries into her car’s trunk, we chatted a bit.

She told me she is a caregiver. She helps her husband, who needed an amputation of one leg at the knee, and takes care of her 80-something mom, too.

She does all this even though she herself had to have surgery on one of her knees. 

Even with all that, maybe because of all that, she said, while helping to load groceries into her car, “God is great.”

She was profuse in acknowledging how big a help our pantry is in her life, and that of her mom and husband.

Money is a big issue in her household. She has been retired for two years.

They get along somehow, amazingly, on $156 per month, which puts a punctuation mark on the need for food in her household. 

God is great indeed.

  —

Dave Warner is among the dozens of volunteers who help out at the food cupboard each week. His dispatches are based on his experiences at the pantry.

 

 

Strength in the Face of Adversity

 

By Dave Warner

Pantry patrons are special folks, to be sure.

“I’m always happy,” a patron told me, smiling warmly as we packed her weekly groceries into her car.

And yet I know she has plenty of reasons to feel otherwise. She’s dealing with some real physical impairments that restrict her in many ways. Plus, she is struggling with a housing issue nowadays, too.

And yet, and yet – she professes to be always happy, at a time when many of us would be saddened by such a plight.

It is patrons like her, with their strength in the face of adversity, that make it a privilege for volunteers like me to work each week at the Loaves & Fishes pantry. Many of the patrons exude a sense of joy and resilience and are grateful to receive food for their families. I am thankful that they and their children will not go to bed hungry.

My weekly job is to walk patrons and their shopping carts to their cars and help them unload their groceries. I was with another patron recently who sighed as we approached her car in the church’s parking lot.

A series of troublesome issues had befallen her.

She’d had a leaking pipe in her house’s plumbing system and a series of broken appliances, all of which would cost money to repair.

After she gave voice to those woes, she, too, came up with a smile as I lifted her groceries into her car.

How does she cope with all that?

Her eyes looked upward.

She didn’t say much, but it was clear that her faith is what is carrying her through.

  —-

Dave Warner is one of dozens of volunteers who help out at the food cupboard. His dispatches are based on his experiences at the pantry each week.

 

 

 

Her Smile 'Lights Up the Whole Pantry'

By Dave Warner

He’s a star.

The little boy is only a few weeks old, and yet he arrives at the pantry each week with his mom.

His big sister, 3 years old, used to be a frequent visitor, but now she often stays home with a family member while her mom and infant brother do the shopping.

You’d have to have a cold heart indeed not to like this family.

For one thing, mom has a smile that lights up the whole pantry, which she manages while picking up the family’s groceries each week.

The other volunteers and I miss seeing the 3-year-old girl, who has charmed us all, but mom can only handle so much and still get the food her family needs.

In addition to her little people, and her working husband, she cares for her aging father, who is ailing, and has to eat a special diet.

That’s one infant feeding, one 3 year old who likes to eat, a hungry husband, and her dad.

And still, the mom smiles. And we do, too.

 —-

Dave Warner is a volunteer at the food cupboard. His dispatches are based on his experiences at the pantry each week.

Our Fresh Produce Stand

By Dave Warner

One of the really wonderful developments at the pantry in the last year or so is the big increase in the amount of fruits and vegetables we offer our patrons every week.

Volunteers Sandra and Lance, who regularly staff that area of the pantry, work hard to make sure that our patrons get the fresh produce that is beneficial for them and their families.

From the perspective of somebody, like me, who weighs the food carts, and then helps people to their cars, it feels as though our patrons are spending even more time at the good-for-you produce tables.

Here’s just one example. Just before the Memorial Day holiday, the pantry was busy, busy, busy. And, as usual, we had abundant quantities of fruit and vegetables.

“Eggplant?” asked a volunteer of a patron.

She shook her head no.

“How about some squash?

Once again, a no.

“How about peaches?” 

The patron’s eyes lit up, and she went home with a big smile on her face, perhaps looking forward to a holiday picnic with plenty of fresh peaches.

—-

Dave Warner is a volunteer at the food cupboard. His dispatches are based on his experiences at the pantry each week.

'Welcome to the Pantry'

By Dave Warner

She looked a bit lost, and then I spotted the red tag in her hand as she approached the scale we use to weigh the amount of food leaving the food cupboard with our patrons.

That tag, of course, means she was a newcomer, an identification the volunteers use to make sure we help new folks who are unfamiliar with the pantry.  So, I made sure I gave her extra attention as I wheeled her shopping cart to her car.

When we arrived at the sidewalk in front of the church, she hesitated, and looked very sad. I paused, and then I saw the moistness in her eyes, just on the verge of tears.

“This is the first time I can have my grandchildren over at my house to feed them,” she explained. “I never had food for them before.”

And then she cried, and she put her arms around me, and I hugged her, too. It was just the two of us, standing on the sidewalk with a light drizzle coming down. We both cried.

She was happy, and I was happy for her.

“Welcome to the pantry,” I told her.

—

Dave Warner is a volunteer at the food cupboard. His dispatches are based on his experiences at the pantry each week.

A Note of Appreciation: O'Neill's Food Market, Giant Food Store in Warminster

We want to thank two of our area food stores for their recent work, helping to fill the shelves at the food pantry. O'Neill's Food Market in Glenside collected 113 pounds of food for the cupboard, while the Giant Food Store in Warminster donated 73 Thanksgiving Meal Kits, totaling 568 pounds of food. We very much appreciate your partnership as we work together to reduce hunger in Montgomery County.

Thank You Jenkintown Rotary!

The Rotary Club of Jenkintown recently made a $600 donation to the Jenkintown Food Cupboard. The Rotary Club has long been a generous supporter of the food cupboard, and we are enormously grateful for the donation and for your continuing vote of confidence in our effort to reduce hunger among our fellow Montgomery County citizens. Thank you!

We LOVE our new scale!

Yes we ARE that excited about a scale.  The Cupboard reports to various agencies how many pounds of food we give out each week. Until today, these poor guys had to lift about 4,500 pounds each week out of the shopping carts and onto the table scale for accurate records. Thanks to an extremely generous donation, we were able to purchase a floor scale.  Now our patrons can simply roll their shopping cart over the scale and they are on their way.

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