Pop-Up Food Pantries Upcoming Throughout Weymouth
May 8, 2015The Weymouth Food Pantry will soon be popping up all over town. The building that has housed the current location for the past 28 years will soon be sold, and there was not one space available to fit all their needs. The solution? Pop-up pantries at locations in every village in Weymouth.
The staff at the Weymouth Food Pantry has been searching for the perfect location ever since they found out about the impending sale of their building. It was challenging to find a location with all the necessary features: enough square footage to hold all the generously donated food; ample parking for both the pantry’s clients and the many devoted volunteers; a central location that is easily accessible for families who need to use the Pantry; and all at a reasonable cost that keeps the focus on feeding hungry families instead of paying for overhead.
After looking into several locations, the Weymouth Food Pantry was not able to find one place to fit all their needs. So, they decided to think outside the box and consider other possibilities. They traveled throughout the state to observe how other food pantries in Massachusetts operate and to gather both inspiration and information to help them derive a creative solution to fulfill their mission to end hunger in Weymouth.
After mulling over the possibilities, the Food Pantry’s Board of Directors decided to adopt a new operational design by distributing food directly within every village in Weymouth. This new designs allows the pantry to fit into a smaller and less expensive space, but more importantly, enables the pantry to service twice the number of people as before.
The New Location & Pop-Up Pantries
The new distribution design includes storing all the food in a warehouse and distributing food at various distribution points throughout town called “pop-up pantries.” Many of the panty’s clients have limited or no access to transportation and having a single location limits the amount of people who are able to access the food pantry when they need it.
Pop-up pantries will not only be in every village, but they will span a range of service times from mornings, afternoons, and evenings to weekends. Unlike the current service times which occur mostly in the mornings, the new schedule will provide working families with a wider range of access to emergency food at some point in their week.
Harvest Helpers Program
The Weymouth Food Pantry is an enthusiastic partner in the Harvest Helpers Program, co-established by Keohane and Interfaith Services. The Harvest Helpers program asks backyard gardeners to plant an extra row of produce in their garden and donate the bounty to Interfaith Social Services’ Pantry Shelf or the Weymouth Food Pantry.
Get all the details about the new locations on the food pantry website.
Leave a Comment