MANCHESTER, NH – On Monday, a day to celebrate Martin Luther King but also designated as National Service Day, volunteers gathered inside the newly relocated Families in Transition-New Horizon’s Food Pantry to stock shelves, sort through products and just get things ready to serve those in need in the community.
The food pantry is located inside the lime-green building, at 176 Lake Ave., where car batteries were previously sold.
Jackie Stone, pantry coordinator, said in the near future the building will be set up similar to a grocery store with shopping carts on hand for people to fill with items they can personally select from the shelves.
Once a month, the pantry receives pallets filled with canned goods and other non-perishable items from the U.S. Department of Agriculture, all at no cost. Additionally, daily runs are made to grocery stores – four Hannaford and Trader Joe’s – and depending on what is fetched on any given day, boxes containing meats, deli and produce.
Sorting through those items can be a tedious process, as Monday’s volunteers learned. Seven-year-old Theo Martey, son of Katy and Theo Martey, dove right in.
“His teacher says he’s an eager learner,” said Katy Martey of her Webster Elementary School second-grader. The two quietly worked together sorting travel-size containers of shampoo, conditioner and other toiletries.
Mayor Joyce Craig and her daughter Kathryn also were on hand to help get the facility ready.
As the COVID-19 pandemic drags on, Stone said the number of people going hungry continues to increase. Prior to the pandemic, about 40 people each day sought food at the pantry, then located at 199 Manchester St. inside the building housing the homeless shelter.
The shelter had to reduce the number of its beds – to ensure social distancing because of COVID-19 – but as winter fast approached it became urgent to find more beds for the increasing homeless population. As a result, the food pantry was relocated to Lake Avenue, freeing up the Manchester Street space for the needed beds.
While the logistics were being worked out, the number of people being served each day at the pantry was reduced to about 25, Stone said. Unfortunately, the need for food not only did not go away, but it increased.
Stone said people were able to get food on Saturday mornings at the JFK Coliseum and, during the week, at food pantries housed at local churches, although she said some of those shuttered because of the pandemic.
“We’re getting a lot of calls – 50 to 60 a day,” she said. She said people continue to struggle because they’ve lost their jobs, had their hours reduced and/or were cut off from Food Stamps. The federal programs that have assisted people during the crisis are coming to an end, Stone explained, compounding the problem.
Stone expects, with the pantry back up and running, that they soon will be able to meet the needs of 40 per day and hopefully more.
She said presently people are allowed to access the pantry — by appointment only – two times a month. Each receives a box of baked goods, meats and, depending on the daily pickups, produce. Also available are toiletries, feminine hygiene products and infant needs, such as diapers and baby food.
Stone said the facility accepts individual donations — canned goods, non-perishable goods as well as paper, feminine hygiene and infant needs. Because of health regulations, home-made items cannot be accepted.
Since COVID-19, the community has stepped up to help out the food pantry, she said.
“I wasn’t expecting so many donations we have been getting but people have been really, really gracious,” she said. “We have been lucky.”
The program relies on volunteers, which are sorely needed. They lost many because of COVID-19 but Stone is hoping with the new facility – which has ample space to move around – some will return, or new volunteers will materialize.
For more information about volunteering or making donations, call FIT/New Horizons at 668-1877 or visit their website at newhorizonsnh.org .
