“The harvest is abundant but the laborers are few; so ask the master of the harvest to send out laborers for his harvest.” -Matthew 9:37-38
One of the developing parts of our apostolate is our food pantry. A recent demographic shift has brought many Ecuadorian refugees into our local zip codes. About a year ago, we started noticing a number of new families coming to our weekly food pantry. A huge surprise for us was that a fair number of the immigrant population spoke Quechua, and NOT Spanish – that provided a challenge of its own! But a sincere smile from one of the Sisters or Br. Matt goes a long way to communicating our desire to help.
Over the summer, the number of recently arrived immigrants continued to grow – from serving 300 weekly in January, we reached an average of 350 families by May. Thinking that we were at capacity, we made every effort to increase the pantry flow – not only was the pantry becoming a long wait for our patrons, it was also becoming quite a marathon for our incredibly committed but seasoned-in-years volunteer corps.
In October, we stepped it up with a new client system that radically increased our efficiency. We also introduced the volunteer room, a.k.a. “the Admiral club” – the hippest get-your-coffee & store-your-goods-in-fancy-lockers set-up on the West side for our frequent flyer, amazing volunteers. Client satisfaction radically increased – and we feel like a sense of Christ-given dignity was renewed in both patrons and volunteers.
The waiting room – as efficient as the DMV, as fun as Disney World! (it has been said)Our pantry moves TONS of food – literally!
To quote Field of Dreams– if you build it, they will come – in God’s providence, a tidal wave of new immigrants from Ecuador arrived in late November & December. We reached an all-time pantry record of 465 patrons for the Christmas pantry 2022, and then started 2023 with a bang of 504 patrons — and the numbers don’t seem to be backing down. We’re seeing that so many people need the food – and it is a blessing that we can help with our service & our cheer.
