I wanted to tell you about Whitehall-Coplay Hunger Initiative’s journey we have been on for more than a decade.

It all started in 2014 when I finished being American Cancer Society’s Whitehall Relay for Life event chairwoman. Pete Bugbee, Whitehall-Coplay Middle School principal at the time, asked me to attend the August Communities That Care meeting.

In 2013, the Pennsylvania Youth Survey was given to sixth-, eighth-, 10th- and 12th-grade students in Whitehall-Coplay School District, and they identified hunger as one of the four risk factors requiring attention. At this time, 16.1% of sixth-grade students worried about where their next meal was coming from, and 12th-graders skipped at least one meal a week.

In November, I became a CTC committee chairperson addressing hunger in Whitehall and Coplay. In February 2015, a partnership was formed with Second Harvest Food Bank to help Leah Saliby, a WCSD middle school teacher, to create the Snack Pack Pals program.

This program provided the most food-insecure children with additional food on long weekends and holidays, including Thanksgiving, the winter holiday, the Martin Luther King and Presidents Day weekends and spring break.

In October 2015, a separate division of the CTC was established and called Whitehall-Coplay Hunger Initiative. Partnering with local faith-based organizations, WCHI began with free community meals the third Tuesday of each month for community residents who benefited from socialization and nutrition.

In 2017, WCHI ran a 10-week free summer breakfast camp for food-insecure school-aged children in Whitehall. Children attended 8:30-10 a.m. Mondays through Fridays. This program ended in 2019.

Also in 2017, WCHI became a charitable organization and secured our 501(c)3 tax status. Community meals served 1,300 guests, the summer breakfast camp provided 1,610 meals, and the Snack Pack Pals program provided 1,600 food packs, totaling more than 26,000 food items.

In 2020, COVID-19 arrived. WCHI created a community outreach program, which provided food to children, adults and seniors in Whitehall and Coplay at two of our summer breakfast locations. In January 2021, we were able to open the WCHI food pantry, located in the St. John the Baptist School, 3024 S. Ruch St., Whitehall, and provided Whitehall and Coplay low-income guests with outside food distributions in the church parking lot.

In June 2022, WCHI opened the pantry for indoor distributions and served 647 people.

Our March 2025 pantry attendance — the highest ever — provided food to 344 households, consisting of 474 children, 617 adults and 250 seniors, for a total of 1,341 people. WCHI is proud to be helping so many residents, and our guests truly appreciate us.

Today, WCHI continues our partnerships with CTC, Second Harvest, WCSD and our faith-based community and others. We could never help so many residents without our dedicated and selfless pantry volunteers. Thank you, everyone.

Have a great week!