Stop & Shop Makes $10,000 Contribution to MRHS Food Pantry

HARWICH – Stop & Shop is teaming up with students at Monomoy Regional High School to combat food insecurity in the community.
Representatives of the corporate grocery company came together with students and teachers on June 11 for a ribbon cutting ceremony to celebrate the expansion of the SHORE (Students Have Opportunities for Recreation and Employment) Pantry at the high school. The Stop & Shop Food Pantry Program also made a $10,000 commitment to help stock the shelves with nutritious food.
“Our food pantry has become a hands-on classroom by teaching job readiness skills, empowering students, and feeding both bodies and hearts across Monomoy,” said Shana Grogan, SHORE Program special needs teacher at MRHS. “Through the food pantry, our students gain meaningful work experience while making a real difference for Monomoy families in need.”
The program provides vocational training and transitional services to young adults ages 18 to 22 with autism or intellectual disabilities. The students oversee the day-to-day operation of the pantry, which provides daily snacks for 100 students and helps provide boxes of food for more than 30 Harwich families each week, according to Grogan.
The SHORE students collaborated with the team at the East Harwich Stop & Shop to start the pantry and help their classmates, 54 percent of whom live at or below the poverty line and face food insecurity, according to the regional school district statistics.
The pantry gives the student organizers an opportunity to practice important life skills like data entry, customer service skills, packing and sorting skills, and it helps build a community of kindness and respect at the school, Grogan said.
“I love everything about working with Laurie at Stop & Shop and I love how we help people with the SHORE Food Pantry,” said Eli Eldredge, a student at the high school. 
“The student team at the SHORE pantry are talented and passionate partners who want to make a difference in Harwich, and we’re so proud we can help support them with that mission,” said Shannon Karafian, manager of Stop & Shop’s School Food Pantry Program. 
The Stop & Shop pantry program was established in 2019 to limit barriers impacting students’ ability to succeed in the classroom by making sure that they have consistent access to food, said Karafian.
The program currently supports four in-school pantries across Cape Cod and serves over 260 schools across the Northeast.     
The Stop & Shop food truck hosted an ice cream social for the SHORE students after the ribbon cutting.