The Morning Journal (Lorain, OH)
Food pantry seeks help
Even with 350,000 pounds of food served and 29,000 people reached in Lorain County last year, We Care We Share Ministries is looking to expand its services in the community.
Bill Hurley, president of We Care We Share Ministries, 1888 E. 31st St. in Lorain, said resources from local foundations remain scarce.
Hurley said the only grants that the all-volunteer nonprofit has received over the past year came from Second Harvest Food Bank of North Central Ohio, which divvies donations among 112 different partner charities.
“We feel like we’re out here on an island,” he said. “Yes, [foundations] give us some money through Second Harvest, and yes we do use that money and we appreciate that money, but it’s a drop in the bucket with everything that we’re doing here.”
We Care We Share’s two buildings were donated by the city of Lorain through the Lorain Port Authority in 2014, five years after We Care We Share’s founding.
In 2009, the organization became a public charity, Hurley said.
The ultimate goal of We Care We Share Ministries is to create a business out of the nonprofit with an employment program that instills job skills and connects potential employees with local employers, he said.
We Care We Share Ministries has reached out to the Business Volunteers Unlimited in Cleveland for help, Hurley said.
“A food box will last you a
few days,” he said. “Job skills will last you forever.”
Despite a lack of funding, We Care We Share Ministries still provides multiple free services, Hurley said.
The organization’s garage space houses its food pantry and clothing closet.
What guests can take is limited to a prepackaged box of essential foods and an item count of garments, the number varying on their stock for the week.
A majority of We Care We Share’s food supply is delivered from Second Harvest on Mondays, with any additional food purchased from grocery stores such as Aldi, Hurley said.
Any peppers, tomatoes, green beans and spices grown in it garden that are not used for We Share We Share’s nutrition classes and cooking demonstrations, are
given away at the food pantry.
These demonstrations occur every month in We Care We Share’s three-story community center and are led by Mercy Health, which are then taped and played throughout the month.
Other services provided include family counseling — marriage and domestic violence — connection to a safe house for human trafficking victims, job information sessions, blood pressure and HIV testing and more, held with organizations such as Insurance Wireless, Family Solutions and Care Source.
“We want this to be a one-stop shop, because you might be coming here on your last two hours worth of gas,” Hurley said. “We want you to be able to get as many services that you can when you come here, because
you might not be leaving the house again for another week or however long because you don’t have gas money.”
All services are provided during We Care We Share’s open hours which are between 1 p.m. and 5 p.m., Tuesdays and Thursdays.
There can be as many as 22 volunteers at We Care We Share a day, who work with different aspects of the nonprofit, such as in the garden or with maintenance.
Elaine Leonhardt of Elyria, 63, has volunteered since last summer and was introduced to the nonprofit through her cousin. “I love it,” Leonhardt said. As for volunteer Josephine Smith of Lorain, 80, she believes that We Care We Share is just where it belongs.
“In this area, there’s a need for it,” Smith said.