The request for help was heard, and a wonderful display of community support was felt throughout the month of November. Many donations were shared with our food pantry in this season of giving, especially with the awareness of the government shut down affecting funding and SNAP benefits to millions of people nationwide.

This was a difficult time for many people before the Thanksgiving holiday, and so many individuals and organizations offered their help. The shut down left Second Harvest Food Bank with a very short list of available foods to share with pantries across the six counties it serves.

The local community delivered nonperishable food items at our drop-off location at the RE/MAX lobby in Whitehall, and our volunteers were making multiple trips daily with their trunks loaded with food to prepare for our distributions before Thanksgiving. We weighed and logged a total of 6,466 pounds of donated food in November! It has truly been overwhelming, and we are so grateful for this.

The ordering system at Second Harvest has started to restock a reasonable amount of staples available for us to choose from, including some pasta, stuffing, canned vegetables, dried beans and some frozen items and fresh produce. We continue to hear that foods are being collected by schools, religious organizations and housing communities to help support our mission, and we are always grateful for these donations. We want to always offer a variety of fruits, vegetables, soups and canned and frozen foods to keep people fed through the cold winter months.

Since the Pennsylvania budget impasse has ended, Second Harvest now has access to PASS (Pennsylvania Agricultural Surplus System) funds. This will provide more fresh products, such as vegetables, fruits, dairy, eggs and meat. It will take a bit of time to build up the inventory again and get suppliers sending inventory routinely, but we know a larger variety of healthy inventory is coming.

To be consistent with the Healthy Pantry Initiative, we will offer these items to help our neighbors have access to the healthiest foods possible.

We also owe a big thank you to United Way of the Greater Lehigh Valley and the Lehigh Valley Community Foundation for raising $667,000 through the critical support fund, which was founded to meet the immediate needs of rising food insecurity in the valley. Seventy-five businesses, organizations and individuals contributed to the fund to exceed the goal that was originally set. This money helped Second Harvest to help our Lehigh Valley communities when it was needed most.

The numbers have just been tallied, and, in November, Whitehall-Coplay Hunger Initiative served our fourth highest attendance on record — 331 households — after six months of seeing less than 300 per month. Being able to help people feed their families is a good feeling.

In addition to the pantry, free community meals are offered twice a month. The dates and locations can be found at our website, whitehallcoplayhungerinitiative.org.

Additionally, St. Luke’s Hospital offers adults 65 and older dinner meals for $3.99, including an entrée, salad, side, vegetable, dessert and drink. Participants can gather with friends, use Wi-Fi and enjoy guest speakers during the dinner hour. The St. Luke’s University Hospital-Bethlehem, 801 Ostrum St., dinners are Thursdays 4-6 p.m. with speakers the first Thursday of each month. The St. Luke’s Anderson Campus, 1872 St. Luke’s Blvd., Easton, dinners are 4-6 p.m. weekdays.

Editor’s note: This column was written by Jenn Dietz.