Please note the following April dates:
Friday, April 1st at 11am, WCHI Vegetable Garden Meeting for anyone interested in volunteering at our garden this year.  This meeting will be at my Re/Max office, 1080 Schadt Ave, Whitehall.
Sunday, April 3rd -Free Community Meal at Faith Lutheran Church, 3355 MacArthur Rd, Whitehall 4:00-6:30pm, guaranteed for the 1st 100 guests. Call Judy for more info 610-554-3569.
Sunday, April 10th -WCHI Bingo at St Peter Church, 4 South 5th St, Coplay.  Bingo doors open at 1pm and calling starts at 2pm.  Call Liz for more info 484-274-6687.
 
FOOD PANTRY IMPORTANT APRIL DATES:  Due to April 14th being a Holy Day, St John the Baptist has Church services in the evening and WCHI CANNOT provide our Food distribution Thursday night.  Instead the night distribution will be held on Wednesday, April 13th from 5:30-7:00 pm.  There is NO change for Thursday morning. Thursday, April 14th daytime distribution will remain as always 11am-1pm. 
 
NOTE: WCHI is planning on moving our outdoor operations inside for the Thursday, May 12th food distribution with specified appointment times.  Every guest attending either the April 13th or the April 14th food distribution will be given an appointment time card with a time slot for May.  For guests who cannot attend our April distribution, please call me to schedule an appointment.
 
For our guests, who have mobility issues, don’t worry.  We will have an ordering form available for you to complete during your scheduled time in May.  A WCHI volunteer will shop for you and bring the food to your car in the Church parking lot.
 
This move indoors is very exciting. And I will share more information as we get closer to the May distribution.
 
WCHI provides several outreach programs including: our Food Pantry; our Snack Pack Pal Program for both WCSD and St Elizabeth’s Regional School; our Children’s Summer Feeding Program (CSFP), which operates for 10.5 weeks over the summer when school is closed at four locations -three in Whitehall and one in Coplay; our WCHI Vegetable Garden; our Free Community Meals (FCM), and our Bingo.  Other than the FCM and Bingo, all our programs require clearances.  See below under Volunteers Needed.
 
We do need Spanish and Arabic translators to help us communicate at both our Food Pantry and CSFP.  Please call me for more info.  No child abuse clearances are required for this specific translating service.
 
MORE VOLUNTEERS NEEDED -WCHI is 100% volunteer and WCHI could never do any of our community outreach programs without their selfless support and time. WCHI has 70 cleared volunteers and we could use many more dedicated people. Our WCHI programs help so many residents.  All volunteers must have state required background clearances (Required by PA State Law) plus some WCHI clearances since we come in contact with children.  For a full list of our requirements, please go to https://tinyurl.com/WCHIforms  and to register https://tinyurl.com/WCHIvolunteer.   Once obtained, these clearances are good for 5 years.  Questions: please Contact Sylvia at Volunteerme.Lee@gmail.com
 
Can YOU offer your time and talents?   I thank you in advance for helping WCHI to accomplish Our Mission: To alleviate food insecurity in Whitehall and Coplay. 

​Do you like to garden and have a few hours a week to help us at our WCHI Garden at the Mickley-Prydun Farm?  A kick-off meeting is scheduled for Friday, April 1st at 11am at my Re/Max Unlimited Office, 1080 Schadt Ave, Whitehall.  All produce grown is given throughout the summer to our Children’s Summer Feeding Program (CSFP) and then to our Pantry guests once the CSFP is finished & the children return to school.  Full child abuse clearances are required. https://tinyurl.com/WCHIforms  Once obtained, the clearances are good for 5 years.
 
Thank you to both Faith Lutheran Church, for hosting our Free Community Meal on Sunday, April 3rd and to St John’s Lutheran Church on Sunday, May 1st.  These free meals are available from 4:00-6:30pm and are guaranteed for the 1st 100 guests.  More info on these meals will be shared as we get closer to the dates and will be posted on Facebook. We currently have 7 available meal dates for the rest of 2022: April 19th, July 3rd, July 19th, August 7th, September 4th, October 2nd,  and December 4th. Please contact me if your faith based organization can host a meal for any of these available dates.  Thank you!!
 
Our selfless volunteers currently pre- bag all our food for outside Pantry distributions.  Our Grand Opening on May 12th is to accomplish two things:  1. Introduce our guests to our model of Feeding America’s Healthy Pantry Initiative’s (HPI) and 2. Move our distribution inside our Pantry.  Our Pantry guests will then be able to select a certain number of food items from each food group that appeals to them.  Everyone will have a scheduled Pantry time.  We will give our guests their appointment time at our April 14th  distribution.
 
For our guests, who have mobility issues, don’t worry.  We will have an ordering form available for you to complete during your scheduled time.  A WCHI volunteer will shop for you and bring the food to your car in the Church parking lot.  I will share more exciting news on our HPI during the next few weeks. 
 
Please note: WCHI is reorganizing our Pantry space and have dedicated shelving and specific food group items tailored to follow best practice recommendations from Feeding America.  Our shelves will be packed with cases of specific food and not individual cans when we open in May.  All our food is currently ordered through Second Harvest.
 
WCHI appreciates all the food donations the public, school groups, and organizations have provided for Pantry distributions over the years and the ones you are currently doing. Please coordinate with me for delivery by April 29th.   After this date, we will not be collecting food items for the Pantry.  We have removed the Pantry food items we were collecting from our website.
 
However, for the Pantry we are desperately in need of toiletries for our guests.  People cannot obtain toiletry items with SNAP or WIC benefits.  And many Seniors do not have discretionary money to purchase toiletries.  These are the items most needed:  Baby and Adult Diapers, Feminine Products, Men’s and Women’s Razors, Men’s Shaving Cream, Shampoo & Conditioner, Soap, Tissues, Toilet Paper, Toothpaste, and Toothbrushes.
 
We ARE still collecting specific food items for Snack Pack Pals (SPP) during the school year and will also continue to collect food items for our Children’s Summer Feeding Program (CSFP).  SPP items are on our website https://tinyurl.com/SnackPackPals and CSFP products will be added in mid-May.  These items are still pre-bagged and do not take up shelving space, just pallet space.
 
All product and monetary donations are appreciated and may be dropped off, mailed, or shipped to WCHI c/o Shari Noctor at Re/Max Unlimited Real Estate, 1080 Schadt Ave, Whitehall, PA 18052.

Our next Free Community Meal will be this Tuesday, March 15th from 4:00-6:30 pm at St. Elizabeth of Hungary Catholic Church, 618 Fullerton Ave, Whitehall. Guests have the option of sitting down for the meal or doing take out.  The meal is Shepherd’s Pie.  The meal is guaranteed for the first 100 guests.  Questions, please call 610-266-0695
 
Please note:  We do not have any meals scheduled for April 3rd, April 19th, or May 1st.  If any faith based organization is willing to do a meal on any of these days, please call me asap.  Thank You..
 
WCHI had a sunny and warm day on March 10th for our Pantry Food Distribution.  We all were so glad it snowed and rained the day before.  We provided our guests with food and toiletries non-stop for both the morning and the evening distributions.  WCHI is very happy to be helping so many households during these tough times.  Our guests are all on fixed incomes and these escalating commodity prices are reducing their available money left for food, gas, medicine, rent, property taxes, and car/property insurance. 
 
Both WCHI and our guests are thrilled we have a Pantry to help our low income residents. THANK YOU, Monsignor Gobitas, St John the Baptist Church, and the Diocese of Allentown!!!  On 3/10/22, WCHI served 241 households comprised of 884 residents; 369 children, 375 adults, and 140 seniors (age 60+); Morning distribution 179 households, Evening Distribution 62 households; and we also registered 31 new households.
 
Several times a year, I like to share our opening day data as a comparison. When we opened last year on 1/11/21, we served and registered 91 households comprised of 308 residents; 113 children, 141 adults, and 54 seniors.  We have come a long way and are so grateful we can help so many residents in need. They all are so appreciative.
 
We can never help so many people without our wonderful, dedicated volunteers of all ages.  WCHI needs more volunteers to help us with all of our programs including, but not limited to: our Food Pantry, Garden at Mickley-Prydun Farm, Children's Summer Feeding Program, Mickley Run Apartment Outreach, and our Snack Pack Pals program at both the Whitehall-Coplay School District and at St Elizabeth’s Regional School.  We have day and evening opportunities available year round.  We do have volunteers that help with all our programs and others who only work with certain ones.   If you can volunteer, we would greatly appreciate it. 
 
WCHI does require several clearances, which are not hard to complete. Most of them can be completed on-line and you go at your own pace.  You will need a computer with internet access.  Whitehall and Coplay libraries have computers you can use. There are additional clearances if you are a Catholic parishioner since our Pantry is located on Church property, whether you volunteer at our Pantry or at one of our off site programs.  Once you have adult clearances, they are good for 5 years.   And there are minimal clearances required if you are a student, 12-17 years old.
 
Note:  Our bi-monthly Free Community Meal requirements, if any, will be at the sole discretion of the host meal site. None of the WCHI requirements pertain to our Community Meal Program. Please review our required clearances at https://tinyurl.com/WCHIforms    Also, please sign-up at   https://tinyurl.com/WCHIvolunteer  so we know you are interested in becoming a WCHI volunteer.  Once our Volunteer Coordinator, Sylvia Lee, receives all your clearances, she will place you our volunteer opportunity schedule.  Volunteer questions, please contact Sylvia at Volunteerme.Lee@gmail.com  
 
WCHI Needs Toiletry Items for our Pantry guests which include:  Baby and Adult Diapers, Feminine Products, Shampoo & Conditioner, Men’s and Women’s razors, and men’s shaving cream.  All Donations are appreciated and may be shipped or dropped off at Re/Max Unlimited Real Estate, 1080 Schadt Ave, Whitehall, PA 18052.  Please leave your donations inside the foyer on the right, Monday through Friday 9AM- 5PM, Saturday 9AM-1PM & Sunday 10AM-1PM.    Note: We do appreciate donated food items.  However, donated refrigerated, frozen, perishable or homemade items WILL NOT be accepted due to food safety liability reasons.