Fighting Hunger: WCHI continues to help community, focus on priorities
BY SHARI NOCTOR
Whitehall-Coplay Hunger Initiative president
I have been fighting hunger, also known as food insecurity, for the residents of Whitehall-Coplay School District since I attended a Communities That Care meeting in August 2014. From that time, I spearheaded strategies that contributed to alleviating hunger for WCSD residents.
The last 11 years have gone by incredibly fast! During that time, along with all our selfless volunteers and our many community partners, WCHI provided numerous food programs.
Today, WCHI focuses on three main areas. First, the WCHI Food Pantry garden, located at Mickley-Prydun Farm, provides fresh vegetables and herbs for our pantry guests. Second, twice a month, through the support of local faith-based and other community partners, we offer free community meals. Third, our priority focus always remains with our food pantry. Thanks to the Catholic Diocese of Allentown and St. John the Baptist Church, WCHI secured a permanent location to operate our food pantry in the Christ the King School building.
WCHI opened with outside food distributions Jan. 13, 2022. COVID-19 restrictions lifted, and WCHI began inside food distributions May 12, 2022. WCHI has been keeping monthly pantry excel attendance data since January 2022.
Our lowest pantry attendance was in June 2022. WCHI served 174 households consisting of 234 children, 275 adults and 138 seniors, for a total of 647 residents. Our highest pantry attendance was in March 2025. WCHI served 344 households consisting of 474 children, 617 adults and 250 seniors, for a total of 1,341 residents.
Our growth continued due to word-of-mouth from pantry attendees and community awareness.
I felt it would be interesting for the reader to see how many people WCHI serves. Our pantry is open monthly on the second and third Thursday. Not every household attends monthly.
In reviewing the monthly data from January 2022 through June 2025, I wanted to mention the summer attendance usually decreases. In September through December, the attendance increases again. WCHI will see if this trend continues through the end of 2025.