A local food pantry system has seen a substantial drop in clients since closing storefronts earlier this year and moving to online ordering.
"It was a big change," said Jennifer Hamilton, a spokeswoman for Lutheran Social Services in central Ohio. "With any innovation like that, there are lessons that you learn and refinements that need to be made."
Hamilton declined to be specific, but said the agency experienced "a significant decrease" in the number of people visiting its pantries. Some decline was expected, she said, and visits began increasing after the agency worked to address snags.
Lutheran Social Services operates the state's largest food pantry system, and its digital shift is being watched not only in Ohio but in other parts of the country as well.
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Hamilton said administrators remain committed to the online model, which they say cuts service times, improves inventory control and saves money. But the agency had to scrap an accompanying distribution system that had clients visiting one of various sites — typically a city recreation center — to pick up orders and choose their produce and perishable items.
Those distributions proved difficult to manage efficiently, and people sometimes wound up standing outside in chilly, hot or rainy weather as they waited for their orders. "It didn't end up working as well as we'd hoped," Hamilton said Wednesday.
So Lutheran Social Services reopened its longstanding Champion Avenue pantry this summer — a building it had planned to sell — and is using the South Side site for pickup and for produce shopping. It was too late to renew a lease at the LSS Westside Pantry, which closed in February.
For now, the West Side pickup site is at the Westgate Shelter House while Lutheran Social Services looks for a permanent home in that area, Hamilton said. People who use the Lutheran Social Services pantry in Delaware County order online and pick up there; the Lancaster pantry hasn't yet transitioned to online ordering.
A storefront pantry in Caldwell closed and now is a mobile operation, but it won't have an online ordering component because internet access can be spotty in southeastern Ohio, Hamilton said. And even in Columbus, people who are unwilling or unable to order their food online can do it by phone. "We have the help desk," Hamilton said.
The changes appear to have created ripples in demand, at least for now, at some other Columbus pantries.
HandsOn Central Ohio, a volunteer and resource referral agency that connects people to area food sources in Franklin County, said referrals to nearby pantries are up an average of 15 percent since Lutheran Social Services adopted the online model. "One on the West Side has a 43 percent increase," said Ernest Perry Jr., president and CEO of HandsOn.
Some of the bump could be a leveling off, he said, because Lutheran Social Services "is a huge player, and in some instances, they probably bore a little bit of a disproportionate load."
Lisa Hamler-Fugitt, executive director of the Ohio Association of Foodbanks, isn't surprised that many people still seem to prefer the traditional pantries.
"These brick-and-mortar operations were community-based, place-based, and they are pillars of the community," she said. "Change is difficult."
rprice@dispatch.com
@RitaPrice
