STONINGTON — If there is one service that has grown ever more important in helping meet the town’s food insecurity concerns over the past five years, it’s the Pawcatuck Neighborhood Center’s food pantry.
When the shelves are full of recently donated or purchased inventory, the center bustles like a small town grocer on a Friday morning, with staffers packing up food for residents in need and supplying parents with supplemental weekend food for their children as part of the PNC’s backpack program. Down the hall, clients are able to take advantage of a household goods “store” that provides health and beauty products, jackets, bathroom essentials and other similar products.
The variety of options and filled-to-the-brim shelves tell two different stories. The first is that “feel-good, holiday classic” of community members giving back — the other, a less warm-and-fuzzy tale of the growing need for assistance.
“When I started as executive director, in 2017, people who used our services seemed to be ‘hidden.’ Our region is geographically so beautiful, and many neighborhoods are wealthy, and as a result, most people seemed unaware that there were people living in their own community who were food insecure,” said PNC Executive Director Susan Sedensky.
“Since COVID, the general public seems to be more aware that local hunger exists,” she continued. “People seem to realize that kids, many who go to school with their own kids, may be food insecure and are in need of food for the weekend when school meals are not available.”
For clients of the PNC, efforts over the past five years have led to ever-expanding opportunities. When Sedensky took over, those who received assistance were able to come just once per month. That expanded to twice per month (and now weekly), and the backpack program was introduced prior to the pandemic. Then the public health emergency forced a significant change in the center’s operations when community needs skyrocketed and state regulations forced the PNC, as it did so many other organizations, to close their building over safety.
To keep the food pantry available to residents, it also meant moving forward without volunteers. The PNC had previously relied heavily on retirees who had the time to help but shifted immediately to hiring paid staff and providing curbside assistance so that services remained available.
Those staff members are and will continue to be an important part of operations moving forward, Sedensky said. Once vaccinations were available, she said the center also saw a rise in volunteers from a new group of residents who became aware of the need as a result of the pandemic and their own experiences. More importantly, she said, business owners and residents continued to provide generous donations to meet the growing needs.
“It just resonated with people. The pandemic made them feel, and in some cases even see first-hand, that this could be anyone,” Sedensky said.
The PNC didn’t just seek to retool its system for safety, however. Officials also continued to move forward in providing additional resources in North Stonington, even opening up office hours once per week in the town to help better address residents’ needs. Sedensky and North Stonington officials said fortunately, reduced in-person needs for other services have since led the center to cut back office hours to once monthly. North Stonington residents are also eligible to use the food pantry and the Pawcatuck facility as well.
Stonington First Selectman Danielle Chesebrough said the PNC has served as a critical resource for local residents throughout the pandemic, including many who were laid off and facing unemployment for the first time in their lives just as thousands were requesting the same thing. The pantry has grown by leaps and bounds in recent years, Chesebrough said, and now serves a larger segment of southeastern Connecticut than it ever has before.
“We are so fortunate to have such a great resource and community partner in the PNC, and Susan and her staff have stepped up to help meet a wide range of needs during the pandemic,” Chesebrough said. “They have been tireless in their efforts to make sure no one is going hungry and have been a critical part of the community’s pandemic response.”
With the increase during the pandemic, the PNC’s food pantry served 1,518 people in the 2020-21 fiscal year, up from 1,330 a year earlier. The center is on pace to likely surpass that number again in the current fiscal year.
Unfortunately, both Chesebrough and Sedensky said that need isn’t expected to dissipate anytime soon.
One of the center’s clients, a man who asked not to be identified, said during a Christmas dinner distribution last week that after getting laid off from several jobs as a result of the pandemic, he finally accepted it and reached out for help. He said the PNC staff made him feel welcomed and helped him to realize he was not alone.
“It’s embarrassing, you know? But they don’t make you feel that way,” he said.
Today, the PNC is open five days a week and has also fully reopened the Unexpected Treasures thrift store on the second floor of the facility at 27 Chase Street in Pawcatuck. The store provides an opportunity for second-hand shopping that provides residents of all ages and backgrounds an opportunity to buy clothes or find a treasure that someone else donated.
Sedensky said the thrift store has helped draw attention to the PNC and has aided in providing the center with donations it needs to keep operating. She said the thrift store has also served as a place where those in need can mingle with those not in need without either party knowing who is who.
If it wasn’t for the constant support from so many in the community, ranging from Stonington Public Schools and regional organizations to town businesses and private residents, Sedesnky said the PNC wouldn’t be able to do much of anything. The center’s success in serving those in need hinges on the generosity of the community, whether it’s a business offering dozens of turkeys or grocery stores serving as regular partners. It’s the backbone, she said, of what makes the PNC great.
Sedensky said the pandemic showed clearly that nonprofits work best when they collaborate with other organizations. The PNC received donated food from the Gemma E. Moran/United Way Labor Food Center, the Salvation Army and the Connecticut Food Bank during the height of the COVID-19 crisis.
“That was a great benefit, since we were unable to accept donations from individuals. However, we now buy a lot of that food, so we need financial resources to buy the food and pay pantry staff,” she said.
She said the center is also continuing to look for ways to partner with organizations across the region to expand services and meet the constantly changing needs of the community.
“A nonprofit can’t solve every issue, but it can be a resource to find that agency that will be able to assist the individual. For example, during COVID, we needed to deliver more food to the homebound. Groups came together to find volunteers to fill that need,” she said. “We will continue to work with other nonprofits, schools, churches, charitable organizations and local businesses that support us.”
Source: thewesterlysun.com
