WHAT’S NEW?

by Dianne Elliot

Executive director

Choice Food Pantry

We are opening our new choice food pantry at 308 Shawnee St. in Bethlehem at the end of the month. It is around the corner in the alley behind the detached four-bedroom home we just completed renovating. A family moved in last month. The new pantry is a welcoming, bright and cheerful place where people will feel that they matter. Visitors to the pantry will no longer have to stand in line, as we are able to provide comfortable seating while they wait for volunteers to fill their orders. Those with vehicles will no longer have to park on a busy street. The new pantry is on an alley that carries virtually no traffic. A ramp will allow them to back right up to a man door where their cars can be loaded safely. The facility is ADA-compliant.

With the assistance of a nutrition specialist we will develop healthy recipes made with the food provided in the pantry. Cooking classes will also be available. The new pantry also is allowing us to increase our refrigeration and we will be able to store more fresh produce and meats. The goal is to provide fresh nutritional food to as many food insecure households as possible in the hope of improving their health. Right now we are an emergency food pantry providing three day’s worth of food for each member of the family every thirty days who live in the 18015 zip code. The baskets are prepared in advance. Once we are fully operational at the new location, it will be open to the entire Lehigh Valley up to weekly depending upon inventory. We will have computer tablets that show pictures of our inventory so people can select the foods they want and neither literacy nor language will be an issue. We are open Monday-Friday.

Center for Community Partnership

The center will be a warm, inviting space where learning and improved health will “provide opportunities for a secure future.” This addition to our programming will provide educational and cooking classes, nutrition, mental health, and drug and alcohol counseling, financial literacy, writing workshops and help with resumes, after school classes, yoga and anything else we can imagine, and for which we have volunteers. We have secured the funds for computers for job searches, a white board, overhead projector, movable desks and bookshelves and renovations to the room. Our goal is to help the most vulnerable in our population who are unable to access these services either because of cost or location/distance to gain self-confidence, dignity and hope by providing the tools they need to succeed.