Whitehall-Coplay Hunger Initiative president

I would like to share exciting news with you and give you an update on our Whitehall-Coplay Hunger Initiative Food Pantry. Please keep your fingers crossed everything will continue to fall into place. Whitehall Township and Coplay Borough food-insecure residents are counting on us.

Anne Chickilly and her husband, Erik Segan, with help from Jeff Warren and approval from Mayor Michael Harakal Jr., were able to plant a garden for WCHI at Mickley-Prydun Farm. All vegetables were provided to our community outreach and Mickley Run apartment outreach programs during the 2020 harvest season.

WCHI and Whitehall Township are currently negotiating an agreement to continue the garden.

We also provided much-needed food and toiletries to more than 1,400 Whitehall and Coplay residents through our community outreach program from March through October. We had to close last month for safety reasons with daylight saving time.

Knowing in the summer we could not continue with our present food operations past Oct. 22, we started looking for a permanent location to run our new food pantry.

In August, Warren told WCHI about the availability of a Lehigh County Cares Grant for COVID-19-related expenses generated from March 1 to Dec. 30. I was encouraged after talking with United Way, which was administering the application process, to apply for the grant.

Pat Karo, WCHI board secretary, and I spent many hours over countless days working on the grant and submitted a $217,000 Lehigh County Cares Grant application Sept. 15.

Last week, I was notified we have been fully approved for the grant and will be receiving the funds by the end of November. Included in the $217,000 grant funds is $25,000 for the WCHI garden at Mickley-Prydun Farm. Three pages of budgeted items were submitted with the grant request.

Also in mid-September, St. John the Baptist Church in Stiles opened the door for us to possibly use its former Christ the King School cafeteria for operations. We are currently in contract negotiations and should hopefully complete this process very soon. Thank you, Monsignor Gobitas and Barb Sukanick!

We are starting the pantry with an empty room and need to purchase everything to run a pantry and make food available to all food-insecure residents in Whitehall and Coplay. Food was not included in the grant request budget.

Several residents called me last week to see when we would open. The need is so strong here. We are doing everything we can to open as soon as possible.

We need to sign the contract with both St. John the Baptist and Whitehall Township, purchase all the pantry and garden items by Dec. 30 and set up and stock the pantry. Realistically, we are hopeful we would be open in early January 2021.

Distributions will continue to be drop-and-go as per Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture and Second Harvest Food Bank mandates due to COVID-19. This is as it was when we closed Oct. 22.

We are and will continue to be a 100-percent volunteer organization. With that said, we can use more volunteers getting their child abuse clearances to streamline the pantry. Many hands reduce the workload.

My husband and I just finished our clearances, and it took less than three days. Some classes have openings in December. This was time well spent, and all the clearances are now good for five years. If you are interested, review the requirements at tinyurl.com/y4cv9d6d.

We are still accepting food and toiletry donations as listed on our website, whitehallcoplayhungerinitiative.org.