ASHFIELD — The Hilltown Churches Food Pantry is now 87.5 pounds more substantial.
Members of the Reeds Bridge Riders, a Conway-based 4-H club, delivered bags of nonperishable food to the First Congregational Church of Ashfield, having collected the items through a food drive. The five young people, accompanied by 4-H club leader Jennifer Mullins, donated the food and learned from food pantry Director Pat Thayer the process of distributing it to clients.
“It’s a great way to get the kids involved,” Mullins said, after Thayer explained to the guests how the food is stored in a locked room. “Community service is a big part of 4-H.”
The pantry is lined with the tools of the humanitarian trade. The bags the 4-H members brought with them joined boxes of nonperishables kept safe on shelves. Meats are stored in a freezer.
Thayer, who said she was a 4-H member in high school, said she is grateful for the help from the Reeds Bridge Riders.
“That’s part of the 4-H pledge, ‘I give my hands to larger service … for my community,’” she said, adding she joined the food pantry after she retired around 2002. “It’s a small community. I know most of the clients and I know there is a terrific need. And I was a client, years and years and years ago, so I know first-hand how helpful it can be, so I wanted to give back.”
Thayer explained the food pantry opens its doors to clients every other Tuesday.
She said that morning starts with volunteers driving to the Food Bank of Western Massachusetts in Hatfield at 10 a.m. and bringing back a caravan of food to Ashfield. Clients are allowed to shop from 3 to 6 p.m. and all food is free. There is no financial criteria, though clients must live in one of the 11 hillside towns.
Thayer said the food pantry distributes roughly 5,000 pounds of food every other Tuesday. She said 40 percent of the clients are elderly and on a fixed income.
The director said the food pantry started at St. John’s Episcopal Church in the late 1960s or early ’70s, then to St. John’s Corner House and finally to the congregational church about 15 years ago.
You can reach Domenic Poli at: dpoli@recorder.com or 413-772-0261, ext. 257.
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