Food Pantry Experience Paper

Words: 1113
Pages: 5

My Food Pantry Experience

I have chosen to volunteer at a local Food Pantry for my service learning project. The pantry is located at Eastland Assembly of God church in West Tulsa. This organization feed up to 35-55 families per week. All of the people that work at the pantry are all non-paid church members. These people spend anywhere from 10-20 hours per week of their time to get everything in place so that on Tuesday nights things will run smoothly.
There are a number of jobs to be done before the church opens the doors to the community. To start off, a group of 5 or so men go to the Oklahoma Food Bank to pick up the food that is being donated to the church. Those men load up the truck, then come to the church and unload the food, then
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One group is for the people who will be attaining information from the families, such as current address and if they are needing any help with utilities. Majority of the people there do request information on how to receive help with paying their electric or water bills. The church works with a group called 211. They offer help with utility or housing needs. They also offer free counseling for emotional needs. At that table they offered a voucher to the clothing closet that is also offered on the night that the pantry is open. Each family is given the chance to go pick out any amount of clothes that they are needing. They are also offered tons of shoes to choose from, as well as coats. The church opened up the clothes closet shortly after the Pantry opened when the need for clothes was brought to the attention to the outreach pastor. It is such a blessing to those who maybe need a new outfit for a job interview or a new coat during the winter. The second group is for people who are encouragers. They ask if they need prayer or if they need to talk about any struggles they are currently going through. I don’t know about you, but I believe it takes a special person to have the courage to pray over someone and it takes even more courage to accept that prayer or for them to open up and discuss issues they might be going through. Many of the people that met with the encouragers did accept prayer and some even asked to talk with the pastor about receiving