$115K Goal Set To Benefit Family Pantry

HARWICH – Like Bing Crosby songs, turkey leftovers and pumpkin spice everything, Helping Neighbors is a sure sign of the holiday season. And the Cape Cod Chronicle’s annual campaign to support the Family Pantry of Cape Cod is now underway.
    Between now and New Year’s Day, we’ll be challenging our readers to give generously to the Family Pantry, helping to make sure that all area residents have access to nutritious food and decent clothing. This holiday season, our fundraising goal is set at $115,000, and thanks to pledges by generous donors, every dollar donated will be matched dollar-for-dollar.

    “When times get tough, we lean on family,” Cape Cod Chronicle Publisher Henry C. Hyora said. “With the high cost of living on the Cape, times are pretty tough for a lot of people right now, and they’re leaning on the Family Pantry.”
    To be specific, about 15,000 distinct individuals rely on the Family Pantry to provide groceries and clothing items, and this year the Pantry is on track to distribute about 165,000 bags of groceries. That’s over four million pounds of healthy food, about 18 or 19 percent more than the Pantry provided in 2023.
    Large families visiting the Family Pantry can take home four big grocery bags filled with healthy, nonperishable food, along with a couple of additional bags with fresh vegetables and fruit, and bags of frozen meat and other proteins, eggs and dairy products and fresh baked goods. Consider how much a grocery order like that would cost in a supermarket, and then consider that most Family Pantry clients can come two or three times each month. That can free up money to pay for housing, medical expenses or other unforeseen costs.
    “If it’s a cold winter, they’ll hit high utility bills,” and the Pantry will be crowded with clients, Family Pantry Executive Director Christine Menard said. “It allows them to shift some of their resources to the electric bill, or the rent, or whatever else they’re facing,” she said.
    People have always given generously to the Family Pantry, but 2024 hasn’t been the best year financially, Menard said. “This is the first year that we’ve really seen donations kind of slow down a little bit,” she said. That’s partly because the surge of generosity that the Pantry saw during the height of the pandemic has dried up. People are once again traveling and going to restaurants and spending money in a way they couldn’t when everyone was sequestered at home, and there was more discretionary money available to donate. At the same time, government benefits that helped families through the worst of COVID-19 have gone away, driving up the demand for the Pantry’s services.
    “The holiday season, that’s when most people do their year-end giving. Hopefully they think about us, because we’re still feeding 15,000 people a year,” Menard said.
    The Cape Cod Chronicle began Helping Neighbors in 2004, when readers gave just over $11,265 to support the Pantry. The fundraising goal has increased steadily, and in 2017 the Chronicle launched a companion fundraiser in the summertime, allowing seasonal residents and visitors to do their part for the Pantry. If this holiday Helping Neighbors campaign meets its goal, Cape Cod Chronicle readers will have something big to celebrate.
    “Thanks to our readers, we’re on track to bring Helping Neighbors over the $2 million mark since its inception,” Hyora said. “That’s a far greater contribution than The Chronicle ever could have made as a single small business. But Helping Neighbors is about coming together for a good cause, and our readers never let us down.”

Click here to donate now

or send a tax-deductible donation to The Family Pantry, 133 Queen Anne Rd., Harwich, MA 02645 (please write ” Helping Neighbors ” in the memo line), or call 508 432-6519 to learn about other ways to help.

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