This year, Whitehall-Coplay Hunger Initiative Food Pantry has been serving almost 1,200 Whitehall and Coplay residents a month. In July, WCHI fed 300 households, consisting of 430 children, 530 adults and 227 seniors, totaling 1,187 people.

Included in these numbers are 17 new households, consisting of 22 children, 27 adults and eight seniors, for a total of 57 people. In April, we fed 316 households, 430 children, 547 adults and 242 seniors, totaling 1,219 people.

WCHI has almost 1,000 households registered since we opened the pantry Jan. 14, 2021. Some guests returned to work and no longer qualify with the USDA income limits based on household size, moved outside our area, have gone into nursing facilities or passed away.

WCHI is 100% volunteer, and we could never provide for every registered household if everyone wanted to come in the same month.

WCHI’s food pantry is open 9 a.m.-1 p.m. and 4:30-7 p.m. on the second and third Thursdays by appointment only. To schedule an appointment, call 484-225-0358.

WCHI could never feed all our guests without the support from Second Harvest Food Bank and the grants I secured through Lehigh County, Trexler Trust and the Diocese of Allentown. We have very generous residents, local social clubs, faith-based and other nonprofit organizations and businesses that also provide food and monetary donations.

Since we feed so many people monthly, I wanted to share some very interesting statistics. WCHI provides food quantities to our guests based on the household size. Our guests select the food they will eat. WCHI does not prepackage bags of food.

Based on data we collected for the last six months, on average, WCHI has 135 households in both the one- to three-person category (45%) and the four- to six-person category (45%) and 30 households in the seven-plus-person category (10%) of our 300 monthly guests.

I list the total number items in the food category that we disburse monthly: 1,020 cans of fruit; 1,320 cans of vegetables; 3,000 protein items (includes canned tuna, salmon, chicken and beef, peanut butter and a wide variety of canned beans); 1,020 cereal/breakfast items; 1,020 boxes/bags of rice and pasta; 2,040 ready-to-eat items like beefaroni, macaroni and cheese and canned soup; 1,020 snacks; 300 condiments or baking items; and 600 beverages (shelf-stable milk, fruit juice and coffee).

We also provide 330 half-gallons of milk and 330 dozen eggs each month. Also distributed are five to 10 pounds of other dairy and frozen items like meat, fish and fruit. The refrigerated and frozen food weighs roughly 2,000 pounds a month.

Second Harvest also provides WCHI monthly with 360 10-pound fresh produce boxes, which include fresh fruit and vegetables. We also provided 1,020 rolls of toilet paper, 330 boxes of tissues and 320 packs of sanitary napkins. Do you find this data very informative, too?

A big thank you to all our selfless volunteers, grant funders and our public food and monetary donors. Without you and our wonderful guests, WCHI would not be the successful food pantry that we are, upholding our mission to alleviate food insecurity in Whitehall and Coplay.