Twin City Christian Food Pantry looking for fresh ideas

The volunteers of the Twin City Christian Food Pantry in Uhrichsville are grateful to their former chairman, Mike Travis, who stepped down from his duties earlier this year.

“He did a lot for us and steered us in a good direction,” said Carl Sowers, who has filled the role since Travis left. “Everybody’s opinions matter and count, and we work as a group, not as a bunch of individuals.”

Sowers feels that is an important consideration that keeps the organization focused on their goal of providing food to people in need and letting their volunteers know they matter. “Volunteers are hard to come by.”

New volunteers are always needed, and the group would like to add new board members including people willing to serve as chairman and vice chairman. Board members do not necessarily have to be available to work at the shelter. “But it would be great if they could,” Sowers said.

The board meets the last Monday of every month.

Sowers said there are a number of roles for volunteers to help the food pantry including developing fundraising activities, janitorial services, and building and grounds maintenance.

“We are looking for fresh ideas. We need people to volunteer, and they need to bring fresh ideas with them because there might be something we are overlooking,” Sowers said.

New ideas are what has kept the food pantry going for nearly 35 years; the organization will celebrate that milestone next year. The volunteers are grateful for the support they receive from the community including from area churches that started the pantry originally and still support the pantry with donations and volunteers.

Even some of the food pantry’s clients give back to the organization with small donations and ask what they can do to help.

“One dollar is just as important as $100 because that $1 gives four meals to somebody, so it’s important,” Sowers said.

The food pantry volunteers were especially grateful for a donation to the Akron Canton Food Bank that they divided between all the food pantries they serve. The donor was CJ McCollum, a native of Akron who now plays for the Portland Trailblazers.

“We got a $2,500 grant, and we went five months off of that without even touching our budget, which was a big savings for us,” Sowers said. “We didn’t know we were getting it; we just know we were blessed by receiving it.”

Despite the ever-changing challenges provided by the pandemic, the community also has shown its generosity.

“We’ve been blessed even during COVID. The community has been unbelievable, just giving, and it’s not just here in the Twin Cities. We’re getting things from Dover and Philly and checks coming in from them,” Sowers said.

The organization even received some stimulus money from donors who felt they weren’t in need and wanted to put the money toward helping those who are.

The volunteers think there are still a lot of people in the community who could be helped, and those people should not hesitate to come to the food pantry. Even people with jobs may need assistance, and anyone could fall on hard times.

“You never know; it could happen to us,” said volunteer Carol Weaver, who treats the clients who come to the pantry as she would like to be treated.

The volunteers do whatever they can to help, sometimes engaging their clients in conversation, praying with them, and they’ve even jumped a vehicle with a dead battery.

The food pantry can help its clients by subsidizing their grocery budget with canned goods and other foods, freeing up money they can use to buy other foods they need like meat.

Of course, COVID-19 has changed the way the food pantry serves its clients. Masks are required unless they have a medical reason, and clients can wait in their car and be notified when their food pickup is ready. All food is now picked up in the alley behind the pantry.

Clients are able to get food at the pantry once every 30 days, and an ID with your current address is all that is needed. The pantry has served clients from the local area and as far away as Canton, Coshocton and Cadiz.

Before the pandemic the clients were able to select from the food available at the pantry. Now the volunteers prepare the food pickups from a form that includes the number of people in the family, whether there are any baby needs and other preferences.

Volunteers begin the day by preloading carts with nonperishable items, and then the refrigerated and freezer items are added last. The pantry also distributes hand soap, dish soap and laundry soap, as well as personal hygiene items.

The food pantry is in need of three or four more grocery-shopping carts to help with the increased demand they are seeing of late.

“When the pandemic started, we were really slow because I think a lot of people were afraid to go out,” said Debbie Bier, food pantry director, adding the majority of clients are seniors or over the age of 45 because they don’t qualify for other help. “Now it is starting to pick up again with people needing food.”

COVID-19 also added an extra burden in cleaning the pantry.

“Every day everything gets wiped down, and then we do extra cleaning once a week,” Bier said. “The waiting room will get wiped down usually twice during open hours, and then it gets wiped down at closing or first thing in the morning before we open.”

The pantry is open for food pickup on Monday, Tuesday and Thursday from 10 a.m. to 12:45 p.m. and on Wednesday from 6-7:45 p.m.

In addition to the grocery carts, the pantry also could use donations of plastic grocery bags, sandwich and 1-gallon storage bags, clean and dry water bottles for dividing up larger containers of soap, and plastic storage containers.

No service is too small to be helpful. Recently, some new volunteers offered to make and print the labels for the soap bottles. It might seem like a minor thing, but it was huge for Bier. “I’ve been handwriting them for about 2 ½ years,” she said, admitting she even took them home to do.

Visit the Twin City Christian Food Pantry at tccscfoodpantry.org for more information or to make a donation. Donations may be sent via mail to Twin City Christian Service Center Food Pantry, 109 N. Water St., Uhrichsville, OH 44683. They also may be called at 740-922-6276 or emailed at twincitychristianservicecenter@gmail.com.