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Community Corner

Food Pantry Needs Help with Donations During the Summer

Regular supply down this season.

Kids still love mac and cheese and PB&J.

So those items move quickly off the shelves of non-perishable foods in a building in north Woburn, especially in the summer, when children don’t eat lunch at school.

With schools on hiatus and some families away on vacation or focused on summer, those shelves don’t get refilled as quickly as in other seasons.

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So the Food Pantry operated through the Council of Social Concern is asking for help to keep its shelves stocked this summer.

“Hunger doesn’t take a vacation,” Karen Colatrella, Food Pantry director, said Monday.

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Some 80 to 85 percent of the pantry’s stock comes from community donations, Colatrella said. Schools and churches hold regular food drives for the pantry, according to Colatrella. Some local businesses also contribute, she said. At the holidays, the pantry sees “an outpouring of generosity.”

The pantry also received foodstuffs from the national postal food drive in May, Colatrella said, and the local postal food drive in the fall.

You may think you put out only a few items, but the drives bring in “a mountain of food,” she said.

But that food supply is getting low now.

The pantry particularly needs macaroni and cheese, peanut butter and jelly and juice—“We always need that,” Colatrella said, referring to juice, and spaghetti sauce and snacks, such as crackers and cookies.

For the first time, the pantry will receive some fresh-grown produce this summer from two parcels in the city’s community gardens, Colatrella said. Since “many of our clients can’t afford to eat healthy,” Colatrella is particularly excited about that arrangement. The pantry doesn’t have room to take regular donations of fresh produce, she said.

The pantry serves about 270 households a month, according to Colatrella. At the height of the recession, the number rose to more than 300 households, she said. Some of those people have an ongoing need, she said; others need temporary help.

Households range, Colatrella said, from families with young children to single people to seniors.

“Hunger runs the gamut,” she said. “People who come here need to be here.” A household may visit the pantry once a month.

Some food pantry shelves hold low-sodium, low-fat and no-sugar products. Those shelves could use more stock, according to the pantry director.

The pantry even offers recipes “on how to use food we typically have here,” Colatrella said. Winchester Hospital is working with the pantry on recipes and nutrition information, she noted.

The food pantry accepts non-perishable food items within their “sell by” dates at 2 Merrimac St. weekdays between 9 a.m. and 5 p.m. The pantry also accepts checks. They should be made out to the Council of Social Concern Food Pantry.

Among the other items on the pantry’s wish list are cereal, both hot and cold; dessert mixes; rice and rice mixes; instant mashed potatoes; powdered milk; soup; tuna and canned items:  fruit and vegetables; lunch products and meat; and condiments.

Started in the 1980’s, the pantry serves residents of Woburn and Winchester, Colatrella said, as “a place where people could come with dignity.”

Some people see coming to the food pantry as a negative, according to its director for the past six years.  She has worked for the Council of Social Concern for almost 25 years.

“We don’t see it that way," she said. "Everybody needs help at some time.”

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