Mayor Edward D. Hozza Jr., Howard Lieberman, Renee Gombert and I attended a Lehigh Valley Food Council meeting Sept. 24 that was put on by a myriad of agencies but headed by United Way. They have identified that 80,000 people living in the Lehigh Valley do not have enough food to eat. This is a so sad and appalling and should not be the case in a country as rich as ours. Eighty thousand will fill the seats at Coca-Cola Park eight times!

The Whitehall-Coplay area does not have agencies like Boys & Girls Clubs, YMCAs, soup kitchens, a health department and aging services, to name a few; therefore, we cannot get an exact number of residents living in Whitehall and Coplay who do not have enough food, nor do we know where they reside. All I do know is more than 2,000 students in the school district have been identified in need. This number does not include parents, adults without children and seniors who are not housebound.

Folks, there are more than 2,000 people in our immediate area who need help. Our Hunger Initiative needs you to help us identify and attract the needy to our programs. Our committee wants to help the hungry and come together as one strong community. I see Whitehall and Coplay working together as one big group. We can do this only with everyone’s help - residents, businesses and churches.

I have sent a letter to 24 churches, 21 in Whitehall and three in Coplay, inviting pastors to attend our meeting to hear what we offer and to have them reach into their congregations and into the communities they serve. I know many congregations are in survival mode. Many do not have families or children attending their churches, but they do have seniors. Less than half of the ministers responded, but I know we can do better than that.

Several churches have come forward, seeing the need and getting involved. I hope to have more churches, businesses, service organizations and citizens-at-large join our committee and help us out. Our next Hunger Initiative meeting is at 11 a.m. and 7 p.m. on Tuesday, Oct. 27 at Faith Lutheran Church, 3355 MacArthur Road, Whitehall (last door to the left of the front of the building).

We would like to start offering free community meals once a month starting in 2016. Pastor Don Skekel of Whitehall Bible Fellowship Church has committed to doing four community meals. Pastor Michael Bodnyk of Faith Lutheran Church has committed to one. St. John’s Lutheran Church, Fullerton, and Commitment to Family and Community in Coplay will be going before their governing boards to see if they can host a free meal. I need at least six more places to commit to holding a meal. Can any of the fire halls or other locations help?

These meals will be free to anyone who wants to come. A schedule of locations, dates and times will be established. My church in Palmerton holds a free meal the fourth Thursday of the month from 4 to 6 p.m. Someone from our church prepares the meal, and the outreach committee budgets $125 a month for the meal. The fellowship committee provides the drinks - water, iced tea, lemonade and coffee. Parishioners and the public provide desserts, serve the food and do the clean up. Our church feeds 80 people. This number is growing with current state budget issues.

I have started doing cash bingos to raise funds for the initiative and plan to donate the $125 to the participating entities. The next one will be Jan. 10, 2016, at Commitment to Family and Community. Donations to the community meals can also be made payable to The Hunger Initiative and addressed to Whitehall Township Treasurer’s Office, 3221 MacArthur Road, Whitehall, PA 18052. Please put “community meals” in the memo section.

We are also working on teaching people how to stretch their food dollars, by purchasing healthy food and showing them how to prepare healthy meals. These are free classes. Do you know that the SNAP program (formally known as food stamps) gives only $4 a day for each family member? Some may think SNAP families get an overabundance of money. That is not true. Can you buy food for yourself for $4 a day?

Additionally, we are offering two programs: Nutrition Links though Penn State Extension and Cooking Matters through Second Harvest Food Bank. Nutrition Links is a five-week program that has lessons and activities to help you care and feed your family a healthy diet on a limited budget. You will learn how to prepare low-cost, quick, delicious meals; develop new cooking and food safety skills; sample nutritious foods; learn meal planning; study how to read food labels; learn serving sizes; and incorporate eating more at home. Primary audiences include families with young children (under the age of 19), pregnant women, school-age youth (5-19 years of age), preschoolers and their parents, adults and seniors.

Pastor “Becky” Beckwith of St. John’s United Church of Christ, 575 Grape St., Whitehall, will offer the program through Julie Davitt, starting at 5:30 p.m., Wednesday, Oct. 21, once a week for five weeks. Pastors Don Skekel and Michael Bodnyk are willing to host a class. St. John’s Lutheran Church, Fullerton, is also going before its council to see if it can offer the program.

For questions or to register for Nutrition Links, contact Julie Davitt at 610-391-9840.

Cooking Matters is a six-week cooking and nutrition education program that aims to empower low-income families to shop for and prepare healthy, delicious meals on a budget. Each course is team-taught by a volunteer chef and a nutrition educator with the support of a classroom manager. Courses consist of weekly, two-hour classes that cover meal preparation, food budgeting, grocery shopping and nutrition. Cooking Matters offers courses for a variety of audiences, including children, teens, adults and families. Participants must be already attending the location the program will be offered in such as a church, food pantry, etc. We do not have any locations at this point. St. Stephen’s Episcopal Church would be a great location since Whitehall Food Pantry is already located there. Does the public know of any other locations where we can offer this program?

For questions on Second Harvest, contact Kristina Parise at 484-287-4015.

Also, Lehigh Valley Mall is hosting a 2015 Canstruction Competition Oct. 23-31. The theme for this year is “ S’caring Hunger Away “ and will feature Canstructions with a Halloween motif. These displays will be viewable by the public during the entire week leading up to Halloween. After the event, all the food cans will be donated to Second Harvest. This is a fun event. A big thank you to Lehigh Valley Mall for donating all the canned food to Second Harvest, which provides much food to our Whitehall Food Pantry. Please go to lehighvalley.canstruction.org for more information.

If you have any questions or would like to help, please contact me at 610-266-5241. Thank you in support of this cause.