Interlaken Food Pantry Looking for Help - ithaca.com

Interlaken Food Pantry Looking for Help - ithaca.com

For over 30 years the Interlaken Reformed Church has been helping neighbors in need by running a local food pantry, but without more help and volunteers the future of the pantry is uncertain. The current director of the pantry, Georgeanne Bakker, ended up in the position unexpectedly after volunteering to do some of the necessary pantry paperwork, but has since taken on a lot more of the responsibilities of running the pantry. She is among a dedicated, but aging, team that continues to run the food distribution program.

The woman who started the pantry, Phyllis Betzler, still goes to the church, but doesn’t run it anymore, Bakker said. Several of the other women of the church who helped run it have since passed away.

“They started with just a very small cabinet, (and) people brought in donations,” Bakker said. “Eventually it grew, and eventually it became part of Foodlink of Rochester. Then we started to get grants and food from that, rather than just donations from church members.”

Bakker said Foodlink is where the pantry gets most of its food. But, the pantry is also connected to the Friendship Donation Center in Ithaca. On Fridays, pantry volunteers go to pick up food from five different grocery store locations, organized through the donation center.

Last year Betzler retired, and she warned that the pantry would need more people to help run it.

“I said that I would do paperwork but nobody else stepped forward, so I ended up with trying to do everything and it just is impossible,” Bakker said. “I am going back to doing paperwork, and looking for other people to fill in the things that I was doing.”

The Friday distribution is once place Bakker said the pantry needs more help. Every other Thursday a truck comes from Foodlink, and Bakker said there is already help unloading and putting the food away. On Fridays when the food is being distributed is when the pantry needs more volunteers. The pantry could use about three more volunteers to help people bring food to their cars and restock the shelves as needed when the pantry is open, every Friday from 3 to 6 p.m. It would also be nice, Bakker said, to find people willing to sit on a board to help run the pantry, redistributing some of the load she has taken on herself.

“What I’m really hoping to find is someone just to overall supervise the ongoing running of the pantry, just someone who can oversee and see what’s going on,” Bakker said.

Although there are a number of dedicated volunteers, the problem, as Bakker put it, is that they are an aging group. A lot of the work that needs to be done to run the pantry involves physical labor and lifting of heavy objects. She would love to find more young volunteers. But, she understands that it’s hard to find people who can put in the time.

The pantry needs more volunteers in part to keep up with the demand it is seeing.

“When I started a year ago it was 60 to 70 families coming through a week on average,” Bakker said. “We are now close to 100 families pretty consistently weekly.”

The Friday before Thanksgiving the pantry gave out holiday baskets. Basket receivers could sign up for either Thanksgiving or Christmas, and the pantry was open. Bakker said they gave out 54 baskets and served 80 people, the pantry’s highest volume ever serving 134 families in one day.

“There’s definitely a need in the area,” Bakker said. “Our families are not restricted by income or by geographical area. Anyone can come to the pantry. If they walk in the door they’re telling us they have a need and therefore they can get food.”

Locals looking to get involved with the food pantry can get in touch by calling the church office at 532-4321 and leaving her a message.