Generous donations make for powerful day at Emmanuel United

Every third Monday of the month, cars are lined around the parking lot of Emmanuel United Church Christ for the congregation’s food pantry. Volunteers are stationed along a route that led to the driveway, standing at the ready to haul vital food and drink.

According to Service Minister Steve Wills, the congregation provides food for 180 families a month through their food pan try that is open from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. These families make up 650 to 750 individuals that are provided with three to four days’ worth of food.

“I think we’re serving multi- generational and multifamily living situations,” Wills said. “Our family size is running a little larger than average, so we also provide through our community garden program where we grow vegetables and things like that.”

The congregation comes together after Sunday service to prepare for the next day’s  distribution. It provides an opportunity for congregates who aren’t able-bodied to participate in the food pantry through its preparation.

But they were able to give more to the community from a generous donation from the U.S. Postal Service where mail carriers collected non-perishable food items along their routes. The Postal Service donated canned meats, potatoes and vegetables as part of their annual food drive, the National Association of Letter Carriers Stamp Out Hunger Food Drive.

This food drive is timed around holidays like Thanks- giving and Christmas as there’s a low supply in local food pantries to provide patrons, especially during summertime. Through the 30-year tenure of this food drive, the Postal Service has been able to collect and donate over 1.9 billion pounds of food across the U.S.

Pastor George Miller was at the food pantry providing blessings, a warm smile and direct- ing the cars toward the next station where attendees would get food. He was one of 40 volunteers who opted to distribute food, alongside six volunteers from Ridge Area Arc, for the needy.

“We’ve been doing such a good job with this that the community has responded overwhelmingly, and I didn’t know how this happened,” Miller said. “But when the post office did the Food Drive, which they do every year, they decided that they were gonna donate all their food to us and to the mis- sion on Lemon Street.”

More than 160 families were served May 20, with the last cli-ent coming around 12:15 p.m. The volunteers distributed 2,000 pounds of meat and produce, including eggs and juice provided by Heartland Food Bank for free.