With Surging Need, Chatham Pantry Urgently Needs Support

CHATHAM – Red is a festive holiday color, but it’s not the kind of ink the Chatham Food Pantry would like to have in its ledger as it approaches its busiest season. A surge in client visits has left the small pantry in need of a similar surge in financial donations.

 Peter Hughes, who manages the food pantry along with his wife, Linda, said October was a very busy month.

 “We had 450 bags of groceries we gave out. That’s a lot,” he said, compared to the 350 given out in September. That month, the Chatham Food Pantry served 65 children, a number that grew to 102 last month. In the last two months, food distribution was up 30 percent, with a 57 percent increase in the number of kids served. Some of the increase is likely seasonal, with summer workers needing extra help while they search for off-season jobs, but food pantries around the region report that demand is steadily growing as people battle the high cost of living on the Cape.

 Located at St. Christopher’s Episcopal Church, the Chatham Food Pantry is open Tuesdays from 4 to 6 p.m. and on Thursdays from 3 to 5 p.m. and is open to anyone who lives or works in Chatham. Steps are taken to preserve clients’ privacy, Hughes said.

 “It’s completely confidential. We only ask them to fill out a very basic form,” and while there are some income limitations, “if someone shows up at the pantry and they’re hungry, we tend to ignore that,” he said.

 People drop off non-perishable foods at the church, and those donations are always helpful, but financial contributions are particularly needed now, Hughes said. The Chatham Food Pantry gets around 2,000 pounds of food from the Greater Boston Food Bank each month, and its annual grocery bill is usually around $48,000. The pantry is currently running a deficit of around $15,000, even as the demand for food is on the way up.

 “We’re spending about $4,000 a month on things we need to buy,” Hughes said. “We could be getting to a point where we have to cut back, and we don’t want to get to that point, by any means.”

 The pantry is one of nine emergency pantries managed by the Lower Cape Outreach Council, which provides a combined 38,000 bags of groceries to people in the eight Lower Cape towns each year. It provides healthy nonperishable foods as well as a limited amount of meat and some dairy products. It gets strong support from local businesses like Chatham Village Market and Buffy’s Ice Cream, and regularly benefits from fundraisers and can drives carried out by local civic groups.

 While in-kind donations are welcome, Hughes urges people to check expiration dates before donating food items, to ensure clients receive fresh, safe food. Donations can be brought to the church office, and all kinds of food are welcome, even pet food. There’s also a strong need for diapers, feminine products and other toiletries.

“Something as simple as shampoo and maybe body wash, that kind of thing,” Hughes said. “It’s kind of a luxury for people when you’re trying to feed your family.”

 The Chatham Food Pantry also offers a home delivery service for around a dozen clients who are homebound, Hughes said.

 “They send us basically a wish list, and Linda tries to fulfill that the best she can,” he said. The program is a lifeline for people who can’t get out of their homes, “and we know that there are some other people that could be taking advantage of it” but who haven’t come forward for one reason or another.

 The Chatham Food Pantry also takes part in the Foods to Encourage program, and regularly partners with Barnstable County to provide simple health screenings and nutritional information for visiting clients.

 Donations in any amount, payable to the Chatham Food Pantry, can be sent to 625 Main St., Chatham, MA 02633.

“A lot of people are helping, but there’s a big need,” Hughes said.