On March 19th, 2016 Rev. Jennie Barrett Siegal posted to her Facebook page, “Today was the grand opening of the Pop-Up Food Pantry at OSU. It was amazing!”
It was. We hoped it would help us increase food access for neighbors who, despite working a 40-hour work week, were struggling to make ends meet. Our other distributions were on Tuesdays and Thursdays. We could never have imagined what this new friendship would become.
We served 32 families that first day at Old South Union Church and distributed 34,298 lbs that first year. In 2018 we changed the Pop-Up Pantry from a bi-weekly event to weekly and in so doing had 3,449 visits from neighbors who needed a little help.
Since, then, we have created a flagship Food Pantry Garden, hosted by Old South Union Church, and sponsored by South Shore Bank.
Thousands of pounds of fresh produce is harvested from this beautiful garden. Volunteers show up Saturday mornings all spring, summer, and fall to plant, weed, and harvest. Fresh vegetables are home bound with neighbors within hours of picking. The garden is also ‘open access’ and because anybody can stop in anytime, it is the ultimate expression in food equity.
Food is essential to our health and well being, but it is also an expression of connectedness, and the parish at Old South Church created a welcoming experience with their hot breakfast service up until COVID-19 protocols changed the landscape. Egg muffins with bacon or broccoli, hot coffee and tea, bagels or pastries were on offer every Saturday morning to neighbors. When our Pop-Up Pantry switched to drive through, breakfasts ‘to-go’ were on the menu, and together we created a series of ‘how to’ cooking videos we affectionally titled ‘Our Living Pantry’ on creating healthy meals from pantry staples.
There are five types of community:
Interest - people who gather around a common interest or goal
Action - people gather to work alongside each other to make an impact
Place - a geographic location
Practice - people who gather to take part in the same activity
Circumstance - people brought together by situation
Our friendship with Old South Union Church isn’t just one definition of community, it’s all five. Six years together and our work has blossomed into a rich, textured, multifaceted effort with people and food at the heart, and looking ahead? Well, anything is possible.
Six years in numbers:
Total lbs distributed - 847,348 lbs
Total number of visits: 20,097
Over 7,000 people impacted, both volunteers and visitors