Need at food pantries continues to increase

By Bill Doyle
CFP Correspondent

WORCESTER – Urban Missionaries of Our Lady of Hope runs The Little Store Food Pantry at 242 Canterbury St. and the St. Oscar Romero Food Pantry at 19 Chatham St., across the street from St. Paul Cathedral.

The two food pantries need help because the need for food has increased substantially.
“Primarily it’s up because of the cost of food,” Urban Missionaries general manager Charley O’Neill said, “but it’s also up because of the cost of rent and utilities. Everybody knows that rents are going up in the Worcester area and that’s something you can’t not pay each month. Same thing for your utilities. So what suffers in many cases is the food budget.”

The Little Store distributed 7,990 pounds of free food to 245 families last year. That was up from 7,347 pounds in 2023 and 3,247 pounds in 2022. The number of families receiving food has soared so other Urban Missionaries expenses had to be curtailed in order to purchase more food.

The St. Oscar Romero Food Pantry distributed 177,000 pounds of free food to 10,049 families last year. That was up from 154,000 pounds to 8,001 families in 2023 and 135,000 pounds to 4,600 families in 2022. The number of families more than doubled, but the amount of food increased by only about a quarter.

So the St. Oscar Romero Food Pantry has been forced to distribute less food per family.
Mr. O’Neill, a parishioner at St. Luke the Evangelist Parish in Westborough, said The Little Store has never turned down anyone seeking food and he hopes that will never be the case.
“That would be horrific,” he said. “We’ll find a way.”

The St. Oscar Romero Food Pantry receives all of its food from the Worcester County Food Bank, but The Little Store relies on donations. St. George Parish in Worcester and St. Mark Parish in Sutton donate the bulk of the food, but others give what they can. Trappist monks at St. Joseph’s Abbey in Spencer donate jellies they make.

People are allowed to receive food at either pantry no more than twice a month.

Accompanied by a volunteer at St. Oscar Romero, people choose the items they want.  

The Little Store is primarily a thrift shop that distributes bags of free food to some of its customers. Profits from the thrift store are used to purchase food that is not donated, but they are also used to fund other Urban Missionaries ministries.

The thrift shop makes quality donated clothing, household items and furniture affordable for those in need. The Little Store brings in about $400,000 a year, which pays for a small staff and Urban Missionaries programs supporting immigrants and refugees, including helping with naturalization paperwork, sponsoring relatives to join them in the U.S., preparing for citizenship tests, training in English as a second language and driver’s education.  

Urban Missionaries also has an apartment house with three apartments that provides a rent break for immigrant families who work with Urban Missionaries while they receive help acclimating themselves to society.

Two families who stayed in those apartments saved enough money to purchase their own homes.

The Little Store has five full-time employees and two part-time employees, but relies heavily on volunteers ranging from students from St. John’s High School and Clark University to retirees.

Mr. O’Neill, 73, said The Little Store Food Pantry created an account on Feb. 26 on Give Lively, a free fundraising platform for nonprofits, and $965 was raised in the first six days. To donate, visit tinyurl.com/Little-Store. A gift of $25 pays for a bag of food to be distributed to a family in need.  

Mr. O’Neill would like to add fresh and frozen vegetables and meat to The Little Store Food Pantry and is seeking a grant to purchase a larger refrigerator and freezer.

Mr. O’Neill said most people who receive food from The Little Store live within walking distance because they don’t own cars so they walk to the store.

“A lot of them are immigrants,” Mr. O’Neill said, “but there are also a lot of people who are just down on their luck.”

Mr. O’Neill said the food pantries see new clients nearly every week and others have picked up food there for as long as a decade.

“Then we have people who do get on their feet,” he said, “and we never see them in the food pantries again, which is always good news.”

Some former clients return as volunteers.

Deacon Walter Doyle, 82, and his wife, Kathy, 76, founded The Little Store thrift shop and food pantry about 40 years ago and St. Paul Cathedral asked them to take over as co-directors of its St. Oscar Romero Food Pantry about 10 years ago. They’re still heavily involved.

“Basically, we’re begging for contributions so we can buy food,” Deacon Doyle said. “It’s a crisis for us at this moment.”

Volunteers are vital for both food pantries.

“They’re great,” Deacon Doyle said. “They come from all walks of life. Some are people who go to work every day and they come in in the evening and help. People come in on Saturdays and volunteer. They’re fantastic. They’re a gift and we cherish them. We thank them all the time for coming in because they make the pantries work.”

Volunteers do everything from stocking shelves to breaking down substandard donated furniture with sledgehammers so it can fit in a dumpster.

Volunteers are needed at the Little Store thrift shop, but not at the St. Oscar Romero Food Pantry, Mr. O’Neill said. At the St. Oscar Romero Food Pantry, about a dozen people regularly volunteer and Mr. O’Neill said he can rely on three or four more to help out when needed.

Each item in the thrift shop has three low prices. For instance, an upholstered arm chair recently had a price of $10 for a new customer, $9 for a regular customer and $7 for a customer who receives benefits from the Department of Transitional Assistance. About 80 percent of The Little Store’s customers receive DTA benefits.

St. Patrick Parish in Rutland donates each year about 60 Easter baskets that The Little Store gives to the children of customers on DTA.

Wegmans in Northborough, Price Chopper in Shrewsbury and the Big Y in Holden donate bread and baked goods to the thrift shop. The bread sells for $1.50 per loaf at the top price and $1.05 at the lowest price.

The Little Store could make more money by selling items at the highest price, but Mr. O’Neill said the purpose of the thrift shop is to help out people who can least afford the items.

Donations can be dropped off at The Little Store during business hours of 9 a.m. until 5 p.m. weekdays and 9 a.m. until 4 p.m. Saturdays. No appointment is needed. Volunteers can show up and go to work that day. To contact The Little Store, call 508-831-7455. Financial donations can be sent to The Little Store, 242 Canterbury St., Worcester, MA, 01603.

Mr. O’Neill said donations can also be mailed to the St. Oscar Romero Food Pantry at 19 Chatham St., Worcester, MA, 01609.

The St. Oscar Romero Food Pantry can be reached at 508-799-4193, ext. 11 or at saintpaulfoodpantry@gmail.com.

The St. Oscar Romero Food Pantry is open 9-11 a.m. Tuesdays and Saturdays and 5-7 p.m. Thursdays.

Last Christmas, Urban Missionaries distributed 10,000 new presents to 2,000 children. Parishes in the Worcester Diocese and area businesses donated many of the presents.
Mr. O’Neill said clothing and toys were purchased at discount prices after last Christmas and he estimated about a third of the inventory for next Christmas is already stored in rooms at Urban Missionaries.

A couple of years ago when a mother of five registered to receive Christmas presents, Mr. O’Neill noticed that she was pregnant and told her that she could also register for the baby she was expecting. She told him that she was expecting triplets.

Deacon and Kathy Doyle formed a Give Lively fund and raised $3,000 or $4,000 for her, Mr. O’Neill said.

Mr. O’Neill worked in high tech for 45 years, but never had the chance to meet his customers. In his two years with Urban Missionaries, he sees them all the time.

“Now I can hand them something and get a smile,” he said, “and I get blessed more often during the day than anybody in the churches.”