Dog days of summer squeeze food pantries

The shelves of the food pantries run by the Holy Name of Mary Church and the Church of the Blessed Sacrament have been more difficult to keep well-stocked in recent years, and now is the time of year that supplies are most sparse.

“People give a lot during the holidays,” said Sister Margie Kelly, parish outreach coordinator at Holy Name of Mary, “but the need exists year-round.”

Kelly’s pantry serves about 90 families. Their orders are delivered to their doors by volunteers, and certain items, like tomato sauce, are always in high demand. The pantry survives on donations, some from groups like the Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts, or charitable organizations like the Valley Stream Lions Club. Even some of the donors find themselves in need, Kelly said, and although many resist the option of using the pantry, she encourages them to do so.

Judy Miccio, director of parish social outreach at Blessed Sacrament, said she sees the same problem, and it has worsened in the past few years. Her pantry has more than 150 people registered this year — many of them with families to feed — while the number had hovered around 100 the previous three years. Three years ago, Miccio said, a week’s worth of donations would fill five or six shopping carts. Now those donations might fill one or two.

There are several factors at work, she said. The church’s congregation is aging, with many parishioners living on fixed incomes, and there are fewer young families attending church who have more resources to donate. With fewer readers of Miccio’s pantry-promoting blurb in the church bulletin each week — especially in the summer — the effort falls out of sight and out of mind.

One of those who uses Blessed Sacrament’s pantry is Lowery K., who asked that her full name not be used to avoid embarrassing her high school-aged children. She had her first child when she was 15, and now has five. She worked as a heath-services counselor in Queens before a cancer diagnosis forced her to stay home.

She has cared for her elderly mother, who has Alzheimer’s, since her father died in 2000, having promised him that she wouldn’t put her mother in a home when he was gone. She also took in one of her siblings, who she found out was sleeping under a bridge after she sold her mother’s house, where he had been living. Her children’s father gave her an ultimatum after she moved her mother in, because her dementia caused outbursts during the night. Lowery chose to honor her father’s wishes, so he left, though he still provides financial support. As she waits for her medical benefits to kick in, Lowery said, the food pantry helps her and the relatives in her care get by day to day.

“You never know when you’ll find yourself in a circumstance like this,” she said.

Lowery said it feels “odd” to be on the receiving end of charity. She doesn’t tell her children where the food and other items, like paper towels and toilet paper, come from because she doesn’t want them to feel anxious about finances, she said.

“I want to get back on my feet so I can give back, but right now I’m just very thankful,” she said. She added that she helps out at the pantry whenever she can, and sometimes goes to Miccio just to talk. Miccio said the support goes both ways.

“Sometimes she calls just to see how I’m doing,” Miccio said. “That’s the way she is.”

Although donations are down, some new sources have appeared. The Our Harvest food cooperative, which operates out of Blessed Sacrament’s parking lot on Wednesdays, supplies fresh meat, produce and other food items, with the quantity determined by each week’s sales. Those items are a special treat for pantry visitors, who are used to canned products.

Another new source is the “Neighbors Feeding Neighbors … Naturally” initiative started by village Trustee Vincent Grasso. He delivered the first contribution to the Holy Name of Mary pantry on July 27, which consisted of fresh fruits and vegetables from the yards of three Valley Stream families and from Food Farm on Central Avenue. Grasso said that a committee of residents is making arrangements with the Associated Supermarket on Rockaway Avenue, the King Kullen in Valley Stream and two Trader Joe’s locations, in Hewlett and Oceanside, for regular donations in the future.

“It’s great that we can provide some fresh produce, because so much of what the pantries get are canned goods that are high in sodium and preservatives,” Grasso said. The grocery stores donate produce that is near its sell-by date, so items from those can include less commonly used ingredients like ginger.

“With Valley Stream’s changing demographics, people from different parts of the world might be able to use these things in their cooking,” he said. “It’s pretty cool.”

To donate or volunteer, contact Holy Name of Mary Church’s parish outreach, at (516) 825-0177, or Blessed Sacrament’s parish outreach, at (516) 568-1027. To contact the “Neighbors Feeding Neighbors … Naturally” initiative, visit the Valley Stream Sustainability Project Initiative’s Facebook page.