The Food Cupboard at Jenkintown UMC has shifted from offering food-insecure neighbors free food by allowing them to shop for desired items inside the church “store” to managing a bustling drive-through operation in the church’s parking lot.

Hundreds of full shopping bags fill tables in the large fellowship hall each Saturday morning. But they disappear in about 2 hours, as volunteers deliver them to patrons waiting patiently with their cars outside. Before volunteers leave they start prepping for the next Saturday.

“We’re committed to helping people get the food they need, and we keep going till the last person is served,” said Melinda Bartscherer, a retired physical therapist who has directed the program for eight years. “But I really worry about people who are losing expired unemployment benefits. It’s getting bad for many of them.”

The church has made safety adjustments during the pandemic to minimize contact. One safety monitor’s sole job is to take temperatures, ask health questions and enforce mask-wearing.

But Bartscherer and her team can now also register and check people in electronically using a website database, and they can more easily document everything for accountability to the state. The food and other help comes from Philabundance, the Montgomery Anti-Hunger Network and other partner organizations. But the ministry faces an $80,000 deficit by the end of the year from all the adjustments and extra amounts of food needed because of the pandemic. It direly needs more help. Donation information is on the ministry’s webpage.

Before COVID-19 they served about 100 families weekly. That number now exceeds 160 and about 10,600 pounds of food. But out of necessity, pandemic-response resources have also increased their ability to meet more needs, including volunteers making deliveries now to patrons without vehicles.

“We’ve even delivered to a homeless man who lives in Washington Park,” said Bartscherer. “He lost everything he had from the pandemic, and now he lives in a tent. We’re helping him get services through SNAP, Medicaid and Your Way Home of Montgomery County.”

Muriel Hafwich began the ministry as a small effort 25 years ago when she saw the need and gathered a handful of volunteers. Today there are about 70 volunteers who work in teams on alternating Saturdays. But many more volunteers are needed, especially as the need increases. Please contact the Rev. Luke Billman at pastor@jenkintownumc.org.

Jim Gross lives in the neighborhood and wanted to help people. He walked over to the church one Saturday to volunteer. Now as the line of parked, waiting vehicles snakes around the block, he directs them into the parking lot.

Russ Vignali, a young construction consultant and recent Lehigh University graduate, started volunteering in April, doing different tasks: directing traffic, loading bags into cars and helping to register new patrons. He saw the program’s plea for volunteers on Facebook. His grandfather had died from COVID-19, and his family had to cancel their loved one’s wake and funeral.

“That motivated me to help,” he said. “My grandfather was a real working-class stiff, and he would have been here doing this if he could.”