FOOD DISTRIBUTION UP AS NEED GROWS
Program also helps with housing and education
The numbers keep going up.
Last year at this time, about 150 to 180 families were coming to the Fresh for All food distribution, said Keystone Opportunity Center Executive Director Arlene Daily.
Now, it seems like each week brings a new record in the numbers served.
“We’re now around 250 families,” Daily said in late November.
With the need to social distance because of the pandemic, the method of Fresh for A ll distribution has changed, she said.
Before COVID-19, people stood close together in line to pick up the food items from tables set up in the Grace Bible Church parking lot.
Now they stay in their car and pull up to the tables to make a contactless pick-up.
“We’ve really had to work to get a lot more volunteers and for traffic safety to be able to handle that many cars coming through,” Daily said.
Changes have also been made in the way people make pickups at Keystone’s
food pantry. They no longer go inside the building.
“People pull up and stay in their car,” Daily said. “We go out to the parking lot and help assist them from
their cars so that we can try to reduce the interactions that people have with each other, whether that’s between Keystone staff and
clients or between clients and clients.”
The changes give social distancing while also making it possible for Keystone to keep providing the needed services, she said.
“We are out here continuing to serve people in the best way that we possibly can,” Daily said.
Along with helping supply food to families in the towns in Souderton Area School District, Keystone Opportunity Center also has housing and adult education programs aimed at helping the students become self-sufficient.
“Housing is a challenge at this point. So many people have economic woes that are really making paying for housing more difficult,” Daily said.
Programs started to help during the pandemic are scheduled to end at the end of the year, she said.
“That’s getting a little scary thinking about the number of people that are going to lose benefits that could possibly keep them housed,” she said.
Homelessness has never been eliminated in Montgomery County, she said, and now there are more people looking for help to keep a roof over their head.
“More and more people are either housing insecure — meaning they feel that at any point they’re soon going to lose their housing and so they’re reaching out to try to find some place to go — or have currently become homeless,” Daily said.
At the beginning of the pandemic, the educational programs were closed for a few weeks, but have since restarted, she said.
“Right now, they are mostly virtual,” Daily said.
“That makes it challenging for students,” she said, “because not everybody has [online] access to be able to do that.”
There are also some classes that are a hybrid of in-class and online instruction, she said.
The number of people volunteering is less than before the pandemic, she said.
“We’re trying to keep as small a volunteer staff as we can while still being able to serve the clients,” Daily said.
Information on Keystone’s programs, volunteering or donating is available at Keystone’s website at KeystoneOpportunity.org. Keystone’s phone number is 215-723-5430.
“Cash donations are the easiest way for people to help and it gives us the opportunity to put the money wherever it’s most needed,” Daily said.
Donations of non-perishable food items for the food pantry were received from the Boy Scouts collection in November, she said. Donated food for the pantry can also be dropped off at Keystone’s Main Street entrance 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. Mondays.
If someone wants to contribute food, but can’t make it to the Monday drop-off times, they can call the food pantry to set up another time the food can be dropped off, Daily said.
“Like everyone else is having a very difficult time, it’s difficult for the clients of Keystone, too,” she said.
Some people who once were donors have now become clients, she said.
“It’s becoming more difficult for everybody,” Daily said, “so we just want to express gratitude for those who are able in this challenging time to be able to support us.”