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Spare food: St. Vincent food pantry gets very large delivery

St. Vincent food pantry gets very large delivery

(Joshua Vissers/Daily Mining Gazette) Volunteers and patrons of the Food Pantry in front of the 2019 Canathon donations. Front row: From left, Joey “St. Nick” Huffman, Courtney Edgar, Heidi Edgar and Tina Coon. Back row: Food pantry volunteer coordinator Tom Vichich, three employees from Eagle Radio, and Mitch Bolo, also from Eagle Radio.

HANCOCK — The St. Vincent DePaul Food Pantry accepted more than 1,000 pounds of food yesterday from WLUC’s Canathon Holiday food drive. Eagle Radio volunteers picked up the food from various collection locations in the area and brought it to the food pantry in Hancock late Tuesday afternoon. The bags, boxes and cases of food covered tables all around the walls of the pantry’s front room.

Now starts the long effort to sort and organize all of the donations, according to volunteer coordinators Tom and Vicky Vichich.

“One year it took us until the end of January,” Tom said.

The pantry operates with an all-volunteer staff. Volunteers come in regularly to help with distribution, packing, checking eligibility and — when large shipments come in — date sorting.

Food that is close or past their expiration date are distributed first. Cans of food beyond the printed date are typically safe to eat for months, Vicky said. The date is only when some of the nutritional value begins to degrade, not when it starts to spoil. The pantry regularly gets out-of-date food donations from Pat’s Foods.

(Joshua Vissers/Daily Mining Gazette) Volunteers help unload the Eagle Radio trailer of an estimated half-ton of food for the St. Vincent DePaul Food Pantry in Hancock.

Even so, some food is too far out of date to be dispersed to other people, but Vicky said even that is put to use. Once a box or two has built up, the potentially spoiled food is given to a local pig farmer.

The pantry is looking for volunteers to help with sorting this year’s donations. Because of the limited open hours of the pantry, groups of volunteers — youth groups, bible studies, fraternities, etc. — are especially helpful for sorting and can schedule mutually convenient times to help sort the donations, Vicky said. Individuals can be scheduled to come in at the same time as larger volunteer groups.

The food pantry, located at 206 Quincy in Hancock, serves the underfed through almost all of Houghton County. The Calumet-Laurium-Keweenaw area has another food pantry serving there.

Food pantries like St. Vincent DePaul distribute bags of food to households eligible under the US Department of Agriculture guidelines. USDA income-based guidelines are required because they sometimes purchase staple foods from the Upper Peninsula Food Bank, which purchases food from Feeding America.

The term “household” is intentionally used rather than family, too. Tom said the pantry does not care if a person lives alone, with their family, friends, or a mixture of both, the guidelines are by household, no matter who that includes.

(Joshua Vissers/Daily Mining Gazette) Part of the food pantry’s “overflow” storage. Food is distributed monthly, with older food being passed out first. This food will be saved for a while longer until it’s needed.

“We make no distinction,” he said.

According to Tom, someone with a Bridge card or a Commodity Supplemental Food Program card is already eligible for food assistance through the food pantry, but not having either doesn’t necessarily disqualify a household, either. The first step of coming in to get food is checking in and having eligibility reviewed.

People are invited to take advantage of the pantry only once a month, but the pantry in Hancock is regularly open for dispensing on Wednesdays from 1 to 4 p.m.

The pantry gives each household some staple foods like peanut butter and noodles as well as some extras. Certain trade-offs are also allowed, for instance if a person uses relatively little peanut butter, it can be exchanged for a bottle of salad dressing or other food. They also get a choice of protein, usually chicken or ground beef.

People who would like to make donations and volunteers looking to help can contact the St. Vincent DePaul thrift store manager at (906) 482-7705.

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