This article touches on rental insurance, food pantry distributions, needed Whitehall-Coplay Hunger Initiative volunteers and WCHI’s children’s summer feeding program food requests. Thank you for your continued support.

I wanted to talk about renter’s insurance since I provided emergency food to two Whitehall and Coplay households that lost everything in apartment fires last year.

This insurance is relatively inexpensive - a minimum of $10 a month and is based on the amount of the personal property the resident wants insured and the chosen deductible amount. This insurance, as I understand it, will pay to place the household in a local motel for a short period of time. It also covers the unit if an adjoining neighbor has a broken pipe that has water coming into your residence as well as smoke damage from another unit.

Unfortunately, people do not know about this insurance or think nothing will happen to them. All the major insurance companies carry this type of policy. Please tell your friends, family and co-workers about this.

No one ever knows when a tragedy will occur. This small investment may be a much-needed blessing in the future.

Our next pantry food distribution is scheduled for 11 a.m.-1 p.m. and 5:30-7 p.m. May 13 in the St. John the Baptist Church parking lot at 3024 S. Ruch St., Whitehall. Identification and face masks are required. No smoking is permitted on church property.

WCHI needs six to eight volunteers to help noon-1 p.m. Wednesdays to unload food from Second Harvest Food Bank. Cases of food vary in weight, but the majority is 20-40 pounds. We do have roller tables to transport the cases once they are in the building.

We have been very fortunate to have the members and guests of the Hokey Firehall help us for more than a year. Child abuse clearances are not required for these volunteers, since they are classified as workers and not volunteers.

This is the only function WCHI does not require the clearances for. Other volunteers on site, including my husband, who transports the food, do have full clearances. Contact me if you can help.

We also need volunteers to help us distribute food this summer to Whitehall and Coplay children - toddler through age 18 - at five locations in Whitehall and one in Coplay. This will be done Monday and Wednesday mornings June 16 through Aug. 25.

You do not have to be available to help every time. For more information on this much-needed outreach program, contact me.

To sign up as a volunteer, go to whitehallcoplayhungerinitiative.org/volunteer-signup.html. To see our clearance requirements, go to whitehallcoplayhungerinitiative.org/volunteer-forms.html.

We are expecting to feed 500 children on both Mondays and Wednesdays with a bag of shelf-stable drop-and-go food. The children will receive a different bag of food each distribution day for two weeks. Then the food rotation will start over again.

WCHI needs the food items mentioned below to begin bagging this food in May for distribution June 16. Food will be needed to replenish supplies throughout the summer. These needed items are food we cannot obtain from Second Harvest.

Needed food items include teriyaki beef chow mein, 48-pack ramen chicken bricks, eight-pack Knorr Spanish rice, 24-pack diced peach cups, 24-pack Mandarin orange cups, six-pack garden rotini, 45-pack Members Mark apple sauce cups, 40-pack Quaker fruit and cream hot cereal, 52-pack Quaker instant oatmeal variety pack, 24-pack Jumex tropical punch, 24-pack Apple & Eve apple juice, 36-pack Nutri Grain variety pack bars, 42-pack Famous Amos chocolate cookies and Lance peanut butter crackers.

Please note these bigger packages are available in store and online at Sam’s Club. You can find smaller quantities in local grocery stores.

All monetary and food donations are appreciated and may be shipped or dropped off at Re/Max Unlimited Real Estate, 1080 Schadt Ave., Whitehall, 18052.

Leave your donations inside the foyer on the right 9 a.m.-5 p.m. Mondays through Fridays, 9 a.m.-1 p.m. Saturdays and 10 a.m.-1 p.m. Sundays.

For monetary donations, make your check payable to WCHI and write children’s summer feeding program or CSFP in the memo section.

Thank you, and have a great week!