Do you like to garden and have a few hours a week to help us at our Whitehall-Coplay Hunger Initiative garden at the Mickley-Prydun Farm?

A kickoff meeting is scheduled for 11 a.m. April 1 at my Re/Max Unlimited Office, 1080 Schadt Ave., Whitehall.

All produce grown is given to our children’s summer feeding program and then to our pantry guests once the children return to school.

Full child abuse clearances are required. Go to tinyurl.com/WCHIforms. Once obtained, the clearances are good for five years.

Thank you to both Faith Evangelical Lutheran Church, 3355 MacArthur Road, for hosting our free community meal April 3 and to St. John’s Evangelical Lutheran Church, 835 Third St., for hosting May 1.

These free meals are available 4-6:30 p.m. and are guaranteed for the first 100 guests. More information on these meals will be shared as we get closer to the dates and will be posted on Facebook.

We currently have seven available meal dates for the rest of 2022: April 19, July 3, July 19, Aug. 7, Sept. 4, Oct. 2 and Dec. 4. Contact me if your faith-based organization can host a meal for any of these available dates. Thank you!

Our selfless volunteers currently pre-bag all our food for outside pantry distributions. Our grand opening, set for May 12, is to accomplish two things. We want to introduce our guests to our model of Feeding America’s Healthy Pantry Initiatives and move our distribution inside our pantry.

Our pantry guests will be able to select a certain number of food items from each food group that appeals to them. Everyone will have a scheduled pantry time. We will give our guests appointment times at our April 14 distribution.

For our guests who have mobility issues, we will have an ordering form available for you to complete during your scheduled time. A WCHI volunteer will shop for you and bring the food to your car in the church parking lot.

I will share more exciting news on the Healthy Pantry Initiative during the next few weeks.

WCHI is reorganizing our pantry space and has dedicated shelving and specific food group items tailored to follow best practice recommendations from Feeding America. Our shelves will be packed with cases of specific food and not individual cans when we open in May. All our food is currently ordered through Second Harvest Food Bank.

WCHI appreciates all the food donations the public, school groups and organizations have provided for pantry distributions over the years. Coordinate with me for delivery by April 29 for any current donations.

After this date, we will not be collecting food items for the pantry. We have removed the pantry food items we were collecting from our website.

However, we are desperately in need of toiletries for our guests. People cannot obtain toiletry items with SNAP or WIC benefits, and many seniors do not have discretionary money to purchase toiletries.

Items needed include baby and adult diapers, feminine products, men’s and women’s razors, men’s shaving cream, shampoo and conditioner, soap, tissues, toilet paper, toothpaste and toothbrushes.

We are still collecting specific food items for Snack Pack Pals during the school year and will also continue to collect food items for our children’s summer feeding program.

Snack Pack items are on our website, tinyurl.com/SnackPackPals, and summer program products will be added in mid-May. These items are still pre-bagged and do not take up shelving space.

All product and monetary donations are appreciated and may be dropped off, mailed or shipped to WCHI c/o Shari Noctor at Re/Max Unlimited Real Estate, 1080 Schadt Ave., Whitehall, 18052.

Call me if you have any questions on the items discussed above.

Have a great week!