Shari's Update - 4/24/2022

 WCHI had a very successful pantry distribution on both April 13th evening and April 14th morning. (We did not hold a Thursday evening distribution due to the Church needing their parking lot for their Maundy Thursday church service).  Wednesday evening was extremely busy.  And we also had a great attendance on Thursday morning.  WCHI was delighted to provide food and toiletries to 233 households comprised of 837 people; 348 children, 353 adults, and 136 seniors (age 60+)!! We also registered 13 new households.

Since last June, we have been planning to have inside Pantry distributions starting last September.  Due to past increasing cases of Covid-19, it just was not safe for our guests to come inside, and therefore, the grand opening kept getting pushed back from September to January. Then we were pushed back again to May.

Starting on May 12th, WCHI finally will have inside pantry operations.  This is so exciting for both our volunteers and guests.  Every guest must have a scheduled appointment to keep proper social distancing in our pantry space. During the April pantry registration process, every guest was given an appointment card with their specific time to keep as a reminder.  Our new process was explained to each household that attended our April pantry food distribution. 

If you do not have a current appointment, please call 484-225-0358. I will give you more information every week leading up to the May 12th grand opening!!

Another exciting program we do is planting, cultivating, and providing fresh vegetables from our WCHI garden at the Mickley Prydun Farm.  For the last two years, tomatoes, zucchini, banana peppers, string beans, cucumbers and tomatoes were grown and donated to our Children’s Summer Feeding Program children and in the fall to our Pantry guests. 

It takes a few hands to feed a village and we could use more volunteers to take a specific raised bed or two to plant and maintain that specific bed for the planting season. We provide all the materials for the garden including the soil, tools, plants/seeds, etc.  The Hokey Fire Dept will provide the water.  We have 17 raised beds of varying sizes to plant. For example, we have (6) 8’x2.5‘; (1) 8’x3’ (2) 14.5’x3’; (3) 2.5’x8’; (1) 7’x7’; (2) 25’x2.5’; and (2) 23.5’x3’ beds.  These larger ones can be divided to smaller plots.  If you are interested in taking a raised bed or have questions, please call 484-225-0358 for more information.

Also, WCHI is in need a new webmaster.  Our website is fully established.  This is not time consuming, and we have written updates, usually quarterly as we move throughout the year with our specific programs. This mainly is a cut and paste type operation.  If interested, please call 484-225-0358 for more information. 

Thank you and have a great week.