Two years ago, Doreen Coleman moved from Chester to a public housing unit in Wayne to raise her 16-year-old grandson after her daughter, who had relocated there years earlier, died of heart disease at age 35.
Dragging privation like scuffed luggage to a rich Main Line suburb hasn’t been easy. “It’s difficult to be in need here,” Coleman, 61, a widow and retired nurse’s aid, said while waiting at the Wayne Church food pantry the other day. “Let’s face it, there aren’t any dollar stores in Wayne."
The church, also known as Wayne United Methodist, houses what its officials say is the only food pantry in the town’s vicinity. In operation for about two decades, the pantry distributes roughly 15 tons of groceries a year, supplied by local food drives, donations from the congregation, and area businesses and organizations.
Incongruous as it may seem, hunger persists in this prosperous enclave of high-end restaurants and immoderately priced clothing boutiques, where the median household income is about $130,000 annually and the median home price tops $500,000.
That want can be a neighbor of wealth and comfort is no surprise to Pastor Tom Ebersole.
“People may be in a nicer setting, but when it comes to the individual in need, it’s the same struggle as in North Philadelphia," he said. "People come here with the same brokenness.”
