Canonsburg Pop-up Food Pantry distributes large, late shipment
Katie Anderson/Observer-Reporter
At left, Canonsburg Mayor Dave Rhome directs a forklift operator to the Canonsburg United Presbyterian Church on West Pike Street, where volunteers unloaded donated boxes of food for the Pop-up Food Pantry Thursday.
Katie Anderson/Observer-Reporter
Volunteers unload boxes of donated food Thursday at the Canonsburg Pop-up Food Pantry, at United Presbyterian Church on West Pike Street.
Katie Anderson/Observer-Reporter
Volunteers unload boxes of donated food Thursday at the Canonsburg Pop-up Food Pantry, at United Presbyterian Church on West Pike Street.
Katie Anderson/Observer-Reporter
Volunteers unload boxes of donated food Thursday at the Canonsburg Pop-up Food Pantry, at United Presbyterian Church on West Pike Street.
The pop-up food pantry in Canonsburg was expecting a large delivery of food Thursday morning, but as a result of crashes on Interstate 476 near Allentown, the truck was about six hours behind schedule.
Instead of arriving at 9 a.m., the truck didn’t arrive in Canonsburg until 3 p.m., hours after the pantry’s typical lunch-hour food rush.
However, folks didn’t go without food, according to organizer and borough Mayor Dave Rhome. He said the pop-up pantry had a backup plan for its lunchtime meals, which they distribute every Thursday at the Canonsburg United Presbyterian Church, 112 W. Pike St.
Because they didn’t want the large shipment of food to go to waste, Rhome invited people to return to the church at 4 p.m. to pick up meals, which included fruits, vegetables, dairy and poultry.
Rhome said Sarris Candies offered one of its coolers for the pantry to use, should the pantry need somewhere to store the food.
The Pop-up Food Pantry was started last March to offer assistance to families impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic. Each Thursday for almost a year, more than 400 families receive meals through the program, which is a partnership between the Canonsburg-Houston Ministerium and the Farmers-to-Families Food Box Program and several other organizations, churches and volunteers.
“Each week we spend about $3,800 in donations to acquire the food,” Rhome said in a news release. “People have been extremely generous with their monetary donations, time and energy.”
Thursday’s shipment of food was larger than usual, with 42,500 pounds transported by tractor-trailer and delivered to the pop-up pantry’s three sites, United Presbyterian Church in Canonsburg, Holy Rosary Church in Muse and Faith Chapel in Lawrence.
“All that food is distributed and well-received by people that aren’t as fortunate as we are,” Rhome said in an interview Thursday.
The very first day the group offered food to the public, Rhome said, they had about 800 vehicles waiting in line for hours.
“I’m proud to say we were able to feed all of those and continued since March 16 of last year,” he said.
About 80 volunteers offered to help unload Thursday’s shipment and deliver food, including employees from MPI Supply, a mining supply firm in Canonsburg. MPI also donated the use of a forklift to assist in unloading.
“About the only positive from the pandemic has been the charitable response of people to the needs of others,” Geoff Popovich, president of MPI Supply, said in a news release.
Rhome also spoke to the amount of people who donated time, money and food to the pantry in the last year.
“Just like so many times, if you’re from Canonsburg or the Canonsburg area, you find that when you put the call out for help, it doesn’t take long for that to arrive on scene,” he said.