Congress members visit Upper Darby food pantry
UPPER DARBY » A congressional delegation paid a visit to Multicultural Community Family Services, Inc. in Terminal Square Friday to get an understanding of hunger in the immigrant community.
U.S. Reps. Mary Gay Scanlon, D-5 of Swarthmore and James P. McGovern, D-2 of Worcester, Mass., chairman of the House Committee on Rules and co-chair of House Hunger Caucus, toured the center as part of a day-long visit focused on ending hunger in America.
MCFS is a non-profit founded to provide social, educational and individualized support services to atrisk immigrant individuals, children, youth and families, said its founder and executive director, Portia Kamara.
MCFS operates a food pantry called the Calabash for members of the community who are at-risk for food insecurity.
“Thank you for coming into our house. What this shows is the immigrant coalition is not one organization, not just one person. It is a collection, a coalition, a community,” Kamara said.
Kamara said she appreciated the statement written on McGovern’s face mask: “‘Hunger is real.”
“Seeing an opportunity with a friendlier White House ... (we’re) trying to seize this moment to end hunger in the US, “said Scanlon. “We know it’s intersecting with so many other issues - certainly the pandemic has brought a lot of it to the fore.”
Scanlon said after seeing people from the MCFS at food drives and distribution centers, she realizes the importance of having culturally appropriate food available,
as well as the restrictions on aid to immigrant communities in the federal CARES program.
McGovern said he was honored to be welcomed into the MCFS.
“One of the problems in this country is we have a hunger problem. We had one before the pandemic and in the immigrant communities, it is particularly challenging,” McGovern said. “It’s still challenging and there is the issue that we don’t all eat the same thing. We have to be culturally sensitive to what people will eat and that it is nutritious.”
He added that there are multiple issues involved in hunger, including housing, wages and transportation and there are creative ways to get food to people to maintain their dignity.
Kamara agreed it is more than just hunger; there are many challenges and among the first is access.
“What’s important to us is to have you listen to us,” Karmara said. “Taking what
is heard and making it actionable, so we can see results.”
Kamara recalled a conversation with a non-immigrant partner who told her, “‘food is food. They should just be glad to get it.’ That is true, but food is so much more. It is comfort. It is culture. It is spiritual. It is health. It is physical,” Kamara said. “We do know in Upper Darby, a community of about 82,000 people, almost 20 percent are foreign-born, representing 70 different countries. In Delaware
County, of 560,000 residents, about 10.1 percent are foreign-born.”
“Foods that are meaningful for us are important,” she said. “We thank you for recognizing that.”
“The Calabash conveys that food is important and in this room, anyone can walk in and take what they need. The food pantry feeds many cultures,” Kamara said.
Kamara said there have been many cases of food given out to immigrant communities that go to waste because the food included
is not part of their culture.
Then Kamara took the group on a tour of the Calabash food pantry. The name derives from the calabash, a dried gourd that has multiple uses in African culture, including for storing food, as a dish, and also a drinking cup.
Kamara estimated they serve 400 families a week. Clients visiting the pantry can take up to 25 items, both generalized food and culturally specific items of their own picking.
“This provides dignity and shows respect,” Kamara said.
The Calabash food pantry has been operational since the beginning of the pandemic. They were recognized as a food pantry by government officials in September of 2020. Kamara said before the pandemic, MCFS was providing food to seniors; however, the pandemic increased the need in the community and they expanded to all ages within the community.
Kamara, who is an immigrant from Liberia in West Africa, started MCFS in the back of her home in 2003.
The Congressional visit was part of a series of Rules
Committee events highlighting the reality of food insecurity in America and examining the steps that Congress and the Biden administration could take to equitably combat it. McGovern and Scanlon have called for a substantive, policy-focused White House hunger conference next year to create a roadmap to end hunger by 2030, which the United Nations has called for.
During the tour, the congressmembers, along with Upper Darby Mayor Barbarann Keffer and Delaware County Council Vice Chairman Dr. Monica Taylor, learned about some of the unique items the pantry stocks to support the community.
Govern asked about fufu. “Fufu is plantain. Fufu is dried and goes through a process to store it,” said Lorpu Hunter, community health supervisor. It is eaten mostly by West Africans.
Kamara said they stock a variety of beans and dried fruit. Rice is a food product that is shared by every immigrant group from Africa to Asia, Kamara noted, “so we have a whole shelf of it.”
Kamara said food comes through the Share program, a Philadelphia-based food bank, Philabundance, and recently from the emergency family support program.
In addition to the stop in Upper Darby, the members of Congress had stops at MANNA community food program and Bartram’s Gardens community food garden in Philadelphia to meeting with experts, as well as residents experiencing hunger. At a roundtable panel, they discussed efforts in the region to address hunger and how those solutions could be adapted and scaled for use in other parts of the country.