The ERA Food Pantry on Woodbourne Road has a shortage of cereal, snacks during summer months.
Television advertisers promote cereal to children for a reason. It’s a vitamin fortified go-to food for many kids, not only for breakfast but for snacking during the day or at bedtime.
Since school has been out for the summer, families who have been visiting area food pantries have been looking for cereal and other foods to replace the free or reduced-price breakfasts and lunches that their children may qualify for at school during the other seasons.
But the pantries are running low on breakfast foods, bread and snacks, as many donors take vacations and don’t realize how great the need is during the summer months.
The shelves of the ERA Food Pantry in Middletown weren’t bare, but the selection of breakfast foods was lean last week and the scarcity has volunteers there concerned.
“It’s getting very low,” said Nancy Shanberg of Middletown, who has volunteered at the pantry for several years and now supervises the food distribution. The pantry provides food and other supplies to about 550 families each month.
The Emergency Relief Association of Lower Bucks County, which runs the pantry, has been supplying food and support to families in need in Lower Bucks for 50 years.
It was founded in 1969 at the former Immaculate Conception parish in Bristol Township and its volunteers were soon joined by members of the nearby Resurrection Lutheran Church. The United Church of Christ of Levittown offered space to house the pantry for several years and volunteers from many other area religious or service organizations also joined in the effort. Food is donated by area supermarkets or acquired through the pantry’s contract with the Bucks County Opportunity Council.
The pantry is now housed in the back of a former Dwight D. Eisenhower Elementary School at 1700 Woodbourne Road in Middletown.
“This summer, we’re focusing on children who need food,” Shanberg said.
Families are allowed to visit the pantry once every four weeks to make food selections. They can choose what they want.
“If you go home with a box of cereal your family won’t eat, it’s no help,” Shanberg explained, but because of the shortage, the breakfast foods are now being rationed. “A family of four gets one box of cereal,” she said.
Shanberg said the families register when they first come and are qualified based on their income and number of people in the households. The pantry reports the weight of the supplies it receives to the opportunity council which provides it with funding to purchase some things wholesale, including bread since it doesn’t have a supplier. It has several refrigerators and freezers so that at their monthly visit, families can go home with a heaping cart of non-perishable supplies as well as meat, eggs and produce.
As Shanberg spoke, volunteers Leslie Harrigan, of Middletown, and Louise Chenava, of Tullytown, sorted supplies of fruits and vegetables that had been donated by ShopRite. Both women said they enjoyed helping others. “It’s gratifying,” Chenava said.
The pantry has more than 60 volunteers, but there’s a need for more. “We’re always looking for volunteers,” Shanberg said.
When supplies are low, typically during the summer vacation season for donors, volunteers will help the recipients locate other pantries that may have more food in stock.
“It’s hard for a lot of people even to walk in,” Shanberg said, since most people in need don’t like to ask for help. “We try to make it easy for them,” she said.
