Pop-up food pantry to end this week
Katie Anderson/Observer-Reporter
Volunteers help load food into the back of a vehicle during a pop-up food pantry distribution day at Holy Rosary Catholic Church in Muse.
Katie Anderson/Observer-Reporter
Volunteers pray together before distributing food during a pop-up food pantry at Holy Rosary Catholic Church in Muse.
Katie Anderson/Observer-Reporter
Volunteer Tony Prezioso directs traffic during a food distribution at a pop-up food pantry at Holy Rosary Catholic Church in Muse.
Katie Anderson/Observer-Reporter
Volunteer Tony Prezioso directs traffic during a food distribution at a pop-up food pantry at Holy Rosary Catholic Church in Muse.
Katie Anderson/Observer-Reporter
Volunteer Tony Prezioso directs traffic during a food distribution at a popup food pantry at Holy Rosary Catholic Church in Muse.
After a year and a half of providing food to people in need, Canonsburg’s pop-up food pantry will distribute its last bags of food Thursday.
“Everything has a time and a season,” said Julie Cosentino-Marcolina, who helped organize the pantry at Holy Rosary Catholic Church in Muse, which was one of three locations. “We’re closing them because it was for the pandemic, but now we’re going back to normal life. The time for it has ended.”
The three popup pantries – at Holy Rosary, Canonsburg United Presbyterian Church and Faith Chapel in Lawrence – were started by Canonsburg Mayor Dave Rhome and the Canonsburg-Houston Ministerial Association. They started raising money to buy food at the grocery store for school-age children who relied on school programs for food.
“When the schools closed last year, they didn’t immediately have a program in place, and the children who use the breakfast and lunch program in school weren’t going to have any food,” Rhome said.
With the donated money they received, Rhome, Cosentino-Marcolina and other volunteers would go to Shop ‘N Save to purchase food. Then they’d organize and bag the food and distribute it on Thursdays.
“It started out with just buying food from different places, and then gathering volunteers to pick it up and help put together grocery bags of food,” said Cosentino-Marcolina, who is the social services outreach coordinator for St. Oscar Romero Parish.
The need has decreased by more than 25% in the last few months, Rhome said, which led organizers to make Thursday’s distribution the last one.
“In talking with our people, they’re tired,” Rhome said of the many volunteers involved. “We know for a fact that there’s enough food coming from different directions across Washington County that no one should be going hungry, and everybody felt it was the right time for the closure of the pop-up food pantries. There are many opportunities now for people to go back into the workforce, and that should give you the money to buy food for your family.”
The pantries have come a long way since those first few weeks, Rhome said. He remembers having close to 1,000 cars in line to pick up food. They were people from all walks of life, too, he said. Some drove luxury cars through the line.
“We had many people that came through in Cadillacs, BMWs and other luxury vehicles who had just lost their jobs,” Rhome said. “They’d say to me, ‘We are so grateful for the opportunity to get some food until we can figure out what we’re going to do.'”
Rhome said some told him they “never in their life” thought they’d have to wait in a food pantry line.
“For a person of that stature, who made money and went to zero money, the panic button went on, and we welcomed them,” Rhome said.
Many people felt panicked in those early weeks – scared for their health and finances. Still, volunteers were able to witness and participate in some impactful service during one of the world’s largest crises in modern history.
“The real beautiful thing was that God provided what was needed when it was needed,” Cosentino-Marcolina said. “In the beginning, some folks who had been waiting for food got out of their cars to help unload food.”
After a few weeks, the pop-up pantries were able to secure participation in federal programs, which allowed them to accept truckloads of food nearly once a month. Rhome said in the last year and a half, they received about 17 tractor-trailers full of food. Each truck contained 1,300 boxes of food, each weighing about 31 pounds.
A typical weekly distribution was about 400 carloads of food among the three pantries, Rhome said, with about 10 pounds of food per car per week. On the occasion that the pantries had leftover food, they would find other pantries in need or donate it to the Washington City Mission.
“We were able to take a large amount of food and make sure no one went hungry and make sure it wasn’t wasted or dumped over a hillside,” Rhome said. “We found places that could take it and use it for people in need. Ultimately, we were able to take care of people who were in dire need when this pandemic came about.”
The pantries weren’t just about food, either, according to Cosentino-Marcolina. She and some other volunteers took time to “minister” to folks waiting in line in their cars.
“We’d chat with folks waiting in line and pray with them or listen to their stories,” Cosentino-Marcolina said. “Someone said to me once that ‘it makes me feel like I matter.’ People felt cared for, and that’s a huge impact.”
The pantries received about $150,000 in cash donations, Rhome said, and operated over the last 15 months through more than 5,000 volunteer hours.
One volunteer at Holy Rosary who’s put in countless hours over 15 months is Tony Prezioso, an 80-year-old Columbia Gas retiree. He’d set up tables and carts for the food, pick up the bags of food at the grocery store, set up cones in the parking lot and help direct traffic. Prezioso even opened trunks for people, so they wouldn’t have to leave their cars to maintain social distanceing.
“Sometimes people would come early, and we’d have 70 cars lined up before we were ready to distribute food,” Prezioso said.
Prezioso said he wanted to volunteer with the pantries because he felt a “responsibility” to help out during tough times. Seeing the appreciation from everyone in line was very rewarding, he said.
“It was very heartwarming the way people reacted because everyone was so thankful for what they were getting, no matter what it was,” he said. “I think the surprising thing at first was the fact that the people who were coming were from all walks of life. It wasn’t just people with low incomes. You saw the pandemic was hitting everybody, regardless of social or economic backgrounds, because all of a sudden, their jobs were gone.”
In the last couple weeks of their distributions, the pop-up pantry volunteers have been giving people information on monthly pantries, free meals and other food distributions to meet their needs.