NEW PANTRIES DOLE OUT FOOD, SELF-RESPECT

Visitors sign in before picking out their groceries

Billboards and yard signs are typically viewed as distractions. Their loud colors beckon from beside the road, daring drivers to look away and fall prey to their amusement. Earlier this summer, a rash of similar signs and banners began popping up all over Indianapolis. However, they carried a message far more significant than the latest products and services.

These signs, announcing summer food programs, are letting people know that they no longer have to miss a meal.

In Indiana, almost 960,000 people are food insecure, meaning that they do not know where their next meal will come from, said Emily Bryant, executive director of Feeding Indiana’s Hungry.

One of them was Amanda Burke, who just graduated from Indianapolis Metropolitan High School on the Westside. As a young mother, she sometimes struggled to provide for herself and her baby. Now she relies on Gleaners’ newest weapon against hunger —a food pantry located at the Met.

Burke says the weekly food pantry has helped her save thousands of dollars a year on diapers for her 18-month-old son. She also is using the pantry to obtain healthier foods for herself, such as  vegetables and yogurt.

“On a regular basis, you might normally eat a lot of chips, candy, just junk to fill your body up. But the food pantry, they don’t really give out junk, they have healthy meals,” she said.

The pantry is one of four school-based pantries that are designed to provide an authentic shopping experience for people in need of assistance. Burke says it “truly is a blessing for the Met.”

Shannon Pryor, a senior at Metropolitan who volunteers at the pantry, calls it  “a little grocery store within the school.”

Cabinets and shelves stacked with products line the walls of a modest-sized room. Despite the confined quarters, the pantry last year supplied nearly 8,500 people with food and other necessary items.

A fridge stands at the far end of the room, housing perishables, and a poster is tacked up on the front, illustrating correct portion sizes and the food pyramid. Open one day a week, the pantry mainly serves students at the Met and the nearby Excel Center for adults seeking a diploma, plus their families. It also helps out neighbors in need.

Rebecca Hersey, program manager for Gleaners, says the new arrangement is very popular. “It has taken the embarrassment issue off the table. The kids are excited to go in there,” she said. “They get all excited about new fresh products that we have. Gleaners works really hard at having fresh fruit and vegetables on a weekly basis for them to pick from, and they can take that home and provide a very good, delicious meal for their family.”

Pryor says she’s seen students from all walks of life and socio-economic levels using the pantry, which is prominently located near the front of the school. Many utilize the pantry with their friends.

Gleaners provides other programs at schools across Central Indiana. Among these are the BackSack Program, which sends schoolchildren home for the weekend with a backpack stuffed with food, and the Kids Café program, which provides tasty and nutritious snacks and meals at various locations after school and during the summer.

Robert Wilson, major gifts manager at Gleaners, says these programs are necessary to feed the 300,000 Hoosier children who live in poverty.  “In the 21 counties that Gleaners Food Bank is responsible for serving, and those counties are primarily in central and southeastern Indiana, we have 103,000 children living in poverty. Over half of them are right here in Indianapolis.”

While innovations such as the Met pantry have helped students, it has also enriched the Westside community surrounding it. Pryor, who frequently helps out at the front desk, has witnessed this firsthand. “I see a lot of people coming to the pantry that I’ve seen just in the neighborhood,” she said. “It’s had a great impact on the community, and it brings joy to our school and those who work here to be able to serve those who need it.”

Not only does the pantry offer many of the nonperishable items commonly seen at other pantries, it also provides more variety, ranging from fresh produce to whole chickens, and paper towels to shampoo. Patrons are asked to fill out a short form noting their name, their needs and their family’s size, but there are no restrictions on how much a person can take.

The fresh produce is particularly important to needy children, who often turn to fast food and junk food to satisfy their appetites. However, while such foods might fill empty bellies, they often fail to provide the nutrients necessary for proper growth.

“We know that when children do not have enough to eat, they can suffer physically, developmentally. Their performance in school is adversely affected. Depending on the level of hunger and malnutrition, they can suffer cognitive deficits, developmental deficits that may follow them the rest of their lives,” Wilson said.

Hunger can lead some children to go to extreme measures, he said. “We’ve heard stories about kids who, after most of their friends finish lunch, will go through the trash to try to salvage things to take home.”

Projects like the Met pantry allow students to feed themselves and their families with dignity. It hasn’t just filled their stomachs, however. It has changed their lives.

For more information on Gleaners food programs, call 925-0191 or visit www.gleaners.org.

Contributing to this story are assistant editor Arpeet Patel, 17, and reporters Jade Poynter, 13, and Laura Rodgers, 11.

Copyright 2011 Y-Press