Food pantry recognizes Burning River Church
Jack Ream and Glen Groh of Dover talk at the open house. Groh has been a volunteer at the food pantry since its inception.
The Dover-New Philadelphia Food Pantry honored the Burning River Church in Dover, which provides space for the pantry, with a partner plaque at a recent open house.
The food pantry has been in a partnership with the church since 2008. Pastor Ben Overton accepted the plaque for the church.
“We have an incredible partnership, and we've been blessed by it. A lot of people don't know this, but we don't pay rent for this building. They provide this building free of charge to us,” said Marty Skelton, a volunteer at the food pantry.
The group does pay a small monthly stipend to help with utilities, but the amount does not cover all of the utilities they use.
The theme of the open house was gratitude, and the food pantry wanted to express that to the members of the Burning River Church.
“We are just so grateful for the church partnering with us in this way to make this available to the community,” Skelton said. “We're serving about 850 families a week, and that's huge. That makes a huge difference here in Tuscarawas County and the surrounding areas. So I would like to officially, after far too long, make a presentation to you, Ben, with grateful hearts and sincere thanks.”
The volunteers are pleased with the impact the food pantry makes on the community, especially its founder Jack Ream.
“This is one of the few communities in the United States that can say there is no hunger,” Ream said. “They don’t even have to ask (for help). They just need to come down here.”
There also is a home-delivery service that makes about 75 food deliveries each week to people with handicaps who are shut in and have no one to help.
The pantry members make it easy for families and individuals to get the help they need. They run on a policy of honesty — if someone says they need food, they get food.
The pantry does need to collect some information from clients including names, number of children and birth dates. A phone number is needed in the rare event that a food item is recalled.
Once a client has signed up, they receive a card with a bar code on it that will quickly be scanned into the computer every time they visit.
“The other night we had 460 families,” volunteer Bill Fritz said, adding they wouldn’t have enough time to register families without the new cards. “I can put a person through in 20 seconds. And that doesn't mean that we don't have time to get to know these people. Getting to know the people, it’s the best thing about working here.”
There also is no limit on the number of visits a family can make to pick up food. The pantry is open two days per week, and a family could visit both days. Only 1% of their clients do that.
Monetary donations are critical to their operation.
“We can get food at less than five cents per pound. So just figure four cents per pound, that means for $1 we can get 25 pounds of food. For $20 we can buy 500 pounds of food. It goes up pretty fast, and we use 45,000 pounds of food a week,” Fritz said. “So that's why the donations are so much appreciated, and that's the only place we get money from.”
They also are grateful for the donations that just show up every week.
Another highlight of the open house was the handiwork of volunteer John Sandy. He remodeled the restroom at the facility and built a bar for coffee and snacks for the volunteers. He also built the podium used for the open house program.
Steve Mastin, president of the food pantry, thanked the volunteers and community for their support of the food pantry.
“It’s individuals who make a difference,” Mastin said. “It's a blessing to this community because it tells us how much we care about other people. Jesus said don’t tell me you love me; show me you love me. We're doing that. We're showing people that we love them.”
For more information visit the Greater Dover New Philadelphia Food Pantry on Facebook or its website at www.dovernpfoodpantry.org.