If you have come to All Souls in the recent past, you might be unfamiliar with a local food pantry serving people living with HIV/AIDS, or people in home Hospice care with any condition. The pantry is Loving Food Resources (LFR). Our church has been strongly linked with LFR since its founding twenty years ago partially due to the efforts of our deacon Joan Marshall. The first few months of the pantry’s existence was in the balcony of Zabriskie Hall. We have provided a host of volunteers over the years, been the site for LFR board meetings and fundraisers, and awarded Food Booth grants on several occasions.
LFR is located on the Kenilworth Presbyterian Church campus about 1½ miles from All Souls and is open to serve clients on Saturdays between 11 a.m. and 2 p.m.
Active clients number about 275 and the average number of food boxes provided any given week is about 100 boxes weighing 40-50 lbs. LFR is a self-select pantry (rather than a pick-up point for pre-packed boxes) and acts as a small grocery store offering a variety of canned and dry food items, fresh produce, some dairy and protein items, and personal care items. The Human Needs basket at the cathedral door collects your offerings which go to LFR on the 2nd and 4th Sundays. The other Sunday offerings are directed to Children First. LFR is also a MANNA agency.
There are opportunities for volunteering at the pantry in a number of capacities including helping to operate the pantry on Saturday, sorting and shelving food on Tuesday, serving as a driver to help clients get home with their groceries, and/or helping with a number of small groups to plan fundraisers, write grants, keep up the pantry, obtain new sources for food, produce newsletters, and the like. If you would like to know more about this nonprofit—an all-volunteer organization, by the way—go to www.lovingfood.org or call Mike Stevenson at 254-5227.