The Rev. Kurt Satherlie of Central Baptist, third from left, accepts a $1,000 check from BankNewport employee Sherri Sorrenti. The money will benefit the church’s food pantry, which is slated to open in about a month. It will stock basic items, like milk, cheese, eggs, bread and butter. Also pictured, from left, are the bank’s vice president, Mike DeVito, Pam Carr, Barbara Szepatowski and BankNewport employee Brian Cunningham. Carr and Szepatowski are working with the Baptist church on the project. PHOTO BY ANDREA VON HOHENLEITEN
Whether it’s a late Christmas present or an early New Year’s resolution, a second food pantry is coming to Conanicut Island.
Central Baptist and St. Matthew’s are collaborating on a food pantry for needy townspeople. It will be in the lower level of the Baptist church near the offices. Although it is still a work in progress, the Rev. Kurt Satherlie, rector at Central Baptist, expects it to be operational by February.
“It seems like the community, or at least the people who know about it, have really gotten excited,” Satherlie said. “We’re doing this for the people in Jamestown. Everybody feels, of course, that nobody should go without the basic necessities.”
The churches already have raised $1,600 in donations to finance the project, including a $1,000 grant from BankNewport. B.J. Whitehouse and his Jamestown Everybody Chorus have donated $300 that was raised at their concert in October.
While the Catholic congregation in town, St. Mark, already has a food pantry, Satherlie and the Rev. Kevin Lloyd, the former Episcopalian pastor at St. Matthew’s, “saw a need for people that were really going without.”
“We decided to join forces,” Satherlie said.
The two pastors conceived the idea for a collaborative pantry but the project was halted by Lloyd’s decision to return to his native North Carolina. A few months later, Satherlie resumed work with the vestry at St. Matthew’s, particularly warden Joan Breakell.
The pantry received approval from the Baptist community, including the board of trustees that administers Central Baptist. Satherlie’s Sunday worshippers also are “excited about this new endeavor.”
“The congregation is well aware of what we’re doing,” Satherlie said. “They gave us their blessing.”
The goal is not to compete with the Catholic church but to have a redundancy. The Rev. Stephen Amaral, Satherlie’s counterpart at St. Mark, endorsed the project.
“Two is better than one,” Amaral said.
A committee was formed to oversee the pantry in its early stages. There are 22 members of that board, which includes a collaboration of congregants from both churches. There also are helping hands from outside the church community. Barbara Szepatowski, a former town councilwoman, was approached by Satherlie to assist administratively. She is acquiring permits and soliciting donations.
“It’s a fabulous idea,” Szepatowski said. “I think it will work well.”
Szepatowski, a board member of the housing authority that oversees Pemberton Apartments, spoke to Satherlie last year about starting a kitchen at the Baptist church. Like the two pastors, she noticed the plight.
“I run into a lot of elderly issues,” Szepatowski said. “As a result, you see that there are a lot of people who do not have a lot food.”
Aside from shelves for non-perishable items, the pantry will offer refrigerated and frozen grocery items, which are not available at St. Mark. The two churches already have purchased two refrigerators and a freezer to keep that food cold.
“We’ll definitely want to get the basics, like milk, cheese, eggs, bread and butter, and always keep that on hand,” Satherlie said.
Satherlie plans to reach out to local supermarket chains, such as Stop & Shop and Dave’s Marketplace, to stock the shelves. If there is enough demand, Satherlie said he would expand the pantry into the adjacent space, which includes its own kitchen. That room, however, would need to be renovated before it could be incorporated into the pantry.
Volunteers, Satherlie said, also are needed. While the hours of operation have yet to be determined, he hopes it will be open at least two days a week.
