Local food pantry loses cooler, needs financial help

The storms that hit the area in the past two weeks have severely impacted how the Reynoldsville Area Food Pantry can serve its families.

The food pantry serves around 300 families in the area, although the numbers can go up and down, according to Carol Myers of the Gospel Center Church.  The building in Reynoldsville has a large walk-in cooler, but that cooler’s mechanical system was damaged by the storms and no longer work.

The failure of the cooler got noticed recently, forcing the pantry to make a hard choice.

“We had to get rid of the food in there,” Myers said.  “You can’t give it away if it might be spoiled. We get donations from C&S Warehouse, and sometimes truck drivers will call us because something they’re delivering to Pilot or Sheetz is damaged.  We have a lot of milk and eggs, products like that. We can’t store them without the cooler.”

Myers said that replacing the cooler will be a $3,000 job.  Money, that the food pantry does not have.

“The Gospel Center pays the electric, water, and gas bills,” she said.  “The pantry just doesn’t have that kind of money available.”

The families who use the food pantry are on a four-week rotation, and the pantry is open every Thursday.  Since there is no insurance on the system, Myers hopes that the community will be able to help the food pantry find a way to replace the coolers.

“If they can make donations to the Reynoldsville Area Food Pantry, or contact the Gospel Center to see how they can help, that would be wonderful,” she said.

Andrew Bundy for reynlownews.com

Editor’s note: to make a donation, send it to the Reynoldsville Area Food Pantry, PO Box 146 Reynoldsville PA 15851 or you can stop by the pantry located at 344 East Main Street from 10:00 a.m. to noon.