Food pantries answer calls for help

By Bill Doyle | CFP Correspondent

Myriam Kant’s husband lost his job and she was a stay-at-home mother so she turned to the food pantry at St. Anne Church in Shrewsbury to help feed their three children.
It wasn’t an easy decision, however. She felt humiliated.
“I wanted to dig a hole and climb in,” she said.
She didn’t even tell her husband and she made sure to pick up groceries at the pantry only during the darkness of night so no one would recognize her.
But the groceries helped get her family through those tough times about 10 years ago. Soon afterward, she began volunteering at the pantry and for the past two years she’s served as volunteer co-manager with Melinda Nies.
Of the pantry’s 10 volunteers, only Mrs. Nies hasn’t been a client.
“What I have is a group of people who want to give back,” Mrs. Nies said. “They needed help and they want to give back.”
The pantry, located in the basement of St. Anne Church, is open from 10:30 a.m. until noon on Mondays and usually distributes free food to 130 clients.
The church’s long-time thrift shop closed in June after losing its corporate sponsors and no longer financially supports the food pantry. So the pantry must now rely on other sources of revenue.
Mrs. Nies estimated that the pantry receives about 60 percent of its food from the Worcester County Food Bank, 30 percent from Trader Joe’s and 10 percent from the community.
The pantry also receives assistance from St. Mary Church and the First Congregational Church, Mormon missionaries and students from St. John’s High, Shrewsbury High and Worcester Academy.
Since the pandemic, the food pantry no longer limits its food distribution to Shrewsbury residents. Anyone in need can visit the pantry from 10:30-noon on Mondays.
Mrs. Nies estimated that each distributed box contains $50-$75 of groceries, including produce, dairy products, canned goods, meat and dry goods.
With a Massachusetts Department of Agriculture Resources grant, the food pantry at St. Anne recently purchased two large freezers and distributed $7,000 in gift cards to clients. The pantry hopes to open more days by the end of the year and is beginning to allow clients to enter to shop for what they want.
“Which is where food pantries really want to go,” Mrs. Nies said, “where you have the dignity of where you’re actually coming in to choose what you need. Nobody should feel badly about having to come in and get some food.”
The food pantry received several new clients who lost their hospitality jobs during the pandemic.
“Young people who never thought they’d need food assistance,” Mrs. Nies said. “What we’ve done is create a really nice environment where we never make anyone feel guilt or shame. We just hand over the food with a smile. We try to make it as friendly and easy as possible.”
The Worcester County Food Bank recently selected the food pantry at St. Anne to join a pilot program to help people eat healthier and become more self-sufficient.
Mrs. Nies and Mrs. Kant spoke to a reporter while they and other volunteers stocked the pantry shelves in the church basement with groceries from Target through a Feeding America program in conjunction with the Worcester County Food Bank.

To Donate

St. Anne Parish,
Shrewsbury
Contact: Melinda Nies
st_annes_human_services@townisp.com
Call: 508-523-4619

Douglas Food Pantry, Douglas
Contact: Nancy Norberg
Call: 508-476-2002

St. Joan of Arc food pantry, Worcester
Contact: The parish
Call: 508-852-3232



By Bill Doyle | CFP Correspondent

Douglas Food Pantry coordinator Nancy Norberg feels connected to her clients.
Mrs. Norberg’s husband passed away 10 years ago, forcing her to support herself and their four children.
“The hardest thing for me was to ask for help,” she said, “because I was always the one giving the help. So I think I feel very compassionate toward people who have to ask for help and I’m very happy to be able to help.”
In addition to coordinating the food pantry at St. Denis Church in Douglas, Mrs. Norberg picked up a second job at Jackman Funeral Home. Assistance from extended family prevented her from having to rely on a food pantry.
“A lot of these people,” she said of the pantry’s clients, “don’t have family to rely on and I’m so fortunate that I did have family that I could turn to for help.”
The food pantry in the basement of the St. Denis Church rectory is open from 4-6 p.m. Mondays and from 1-3 p.m. Wednesdays, and serves 70-80 families.           
“Our main mission is to serve people with dignity,” Mrs. Norberg said. “It’s hard for people to come and admit that they need help so we try to make it as easy as possible.”
During the pandemic, masked and vaccinated clients are allowed to enter the pantry, but only the volunteers can handle the food from the freezers and shelves to fill their bags.
The Douglas food pantry receives about 80 percent of its food from the Worcester County Food Bank in association with the Massachusetts Emergency Food Assistance Program, and the rest comes from donations and food drives conducted by Girl Scouts, Boy Scouts and
local banks.
Mrs. Norberg said all clients are grateful and some of the elderly stay to chat for an hour or so because they enjoy the company of the eight volunteers.
More than 120 families received turkey dinners and pies at Thanksgiving, but Mrs. Norberg said there’s also a great need in the summer when children don’t receive free meals at school.
Overall, however, the Douglas food pantry has had fewer clients this year and Mrs. Norberg attributes the drop to people receiving stimulus checks and others being afraid to leave home during the pandemic even though they still have the need. So the pantry has dropped off food on porches.

St. Joan of Arc pantry
seeing fewer people

Fewer and fewer people are making use of the food pantry at St. Joan of Arc Church on Lincoln Street in Worcester and coordinator Paula Ogle isn’t sure why.
The pantry is open from 5-6:30 p.m. on Wednesdays and Ms. Ogle, one of the pantry’s nine volunteers, said the pantry served only two customers during a recent week. Some weeks, no customers show up. The pantry cut back from two nights a week to one just before the pandemic hit last year because of the drop in demand. Ms. Ogle said the pantry had 278 customers last year, including 100 or so for Thanksgiving, but has had only about 50 so far this year. She said the pantry distributed food to far more people when she joined the pantry as a volunteer assistant 11 years ago.
Ms. Ogle thinks people may not rely on the pantry as often because they’re receiving stimulus checks, but she remains convinced the need and hunger is still there.
St. Joan of Arc receives food and funds from its own parishioners and those at St. Christopher Church of Worcester, Our Lady of the Rosary of Worcester and St. Joseph Church in Auburn. 
The food pantry has been moved from the basement of the rectory to one of the church’s garages. The pantry purchased a small refrigerator-freezer this year, but mostly distributes canned and dry goods.
The pantry is open to people who live near St. Joan of Arc in the 01605 or 01606 zip codes, but Mrs. Ogle said people from elsewhere will receive groceries on their first visit and then will be directed toward pantries closer to their homes. Free groceries are distributed to people through a pantry window or door. Customers must provide their zip code and sign their name and address.

To Donate

St. Anne Parish,
Shrewsbury
Contact: Melinda Nies
st_annes_human_services@townisp.com
Call: 508-523-4619

Douglas Food Pantry, Douglas
Contact: Nancy Norberg
Call: 508-476-2002

St. Joan of Arc food pantry, Worcester
Contact: The parish
Call: 508-852-3232