COMMON GROUND
STATE VISIT: Official tours Manna on Main Street food programs JOB TRAINING: Partnerships praised by Human Services secretary
LANSDALE >> Around noon on Friday, dozens of visitors walked, and in a few cases wheeled, their way through the lobby of the North Penn Commons complex on Main Street in Lansdale.
They may have noticed a VIP visitor in their midst: Pennsylvania Department of Human Services Secretary Teresa Miller, on hand to tour the facility and hear success stories of nonprofit food pantry Manna on Main Street’s SNAP 50/50 job training program.
“This has been a really fabulous tour, and a great opportunity to see truly local partners at the local level, coming together, seeing needs, and trying to figure out how you address those needs in the most effective way possible,” Miller said.
Friday’s visit by Miller was meant to highlight the topic of food security across Pennsylvania, along with a similar visit earlier in the day to
the fifth annual Montgomery County Anti-Hunger Network conference in Pottstown.
In Lansdale, Miller toured the North Penn Commons complex at 606 East Main Street in Lansdale, getting a firsthand look at how Manna on Main Street has, since last fall, taken part in the SNAP 50/50 job training program.
“We are really, really grateful for this SNAP 50/50 education and training reimbursement money,” said Suzan Neiger Gould, Manna’s Executive Director.
“We have such skilled staff working in this program, and you need to have skilled staff in order to make this work,” she said.
The state 50/50 program matches those who come to agencies like Manna for food under the federal Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program with onsite job skills training, in a twelve-week program that starts in Manna’s kitchen and eventually places trainees out front in Manna’s “Common Grounds Cafe” in the lobby of their shared complex — success stories like chef Alex Justo, who was working the cafe counter Friday afternoon.
Those who take part in the program, about eight members per 12-week training cohort, learn their way around a kitchen from Manna employees, and can earn formal certifications such as the “ServSafe” Food Handler accreditation awarded by the National Restaurant Association.
“If somebody hasn’t stepped into a kitchen before, this gives them a chance to really understand what they’re going to be living and experiencing for 12 weeks,” said Kristyn DiDominick, Manna’s program director.
“Manna is all about food, right? So we can take our mission a little deeper, and have our chefs help individuals build something that’s their own career, that’s sustainable, for them and for their families. For us, that’s the culinary field. We know food, we love it, and we’re all about that — that’s our mission,” she said.
During her visit Friday, Miller got an up-close look at Manna’s kitchen, as chefs Suzanne Driscoll and Dan Salva cleaned up from a lunchtime meal and started prep work on that evening’s offerings. In the nonprofit’s food pantry, Manna Development Director Vince Caperelli Jr. showed Miller how donated food items are given point values based on federal nutritional guidelines, and those who “shop” in the pantry get a certain number of points per trip.
“It’s based on the ages and genders, numbers of people in the household, recommended caloric intake, and then they get their total points and divide it based on the ‘food pyramid’ — or whatever the shape is now,” Caperelli said.
Prepared food coming from the kitchen is made by those in the SNAP 50/50 training program, with help from the professionals, and Niger Gould and Manna board member Jeffrey Fields said a recent big contract will expand that program much farther. Starting Monday, Manna will be delivering prepared food to the Ambler, Norristown and Glenside areas, after submitting the winning bid for part of Montgomery County’s “Meals on Wheels” program.