Angels Are Where You Find Them.

By Doug Graves © 2007

Angels are where you find them. The problem is to recognize them when you see them. They seem so ordinary, so much like regular folks. Those at the St. Stephen’s Episcopal Church Food Pantry at 300 Mechanicsville Road in Whitehall didn’t have a set of wings in whole bunch.
Karen Schell is the director and has been volunteering there for the past five years. Schell operates the Food Pantry by appointment only. “We do that because if we advertise a particular day and are forced to change the date because a volunteer is not available, then we run the risk of people standing in line waiting for volunteers that won’t be there.” To get an appointment, call (610) 262-1264.
The range of clients who use the Food Pantry include the elderly, single moms raising children, cancer patients and the homeless.
They have plenty of food. They are well stocked in dry foods like cereals and pasta and have lots of canned goods. Bread is plentiful. Meat is sometimes available but their storage capability for fresh meat is very limited plus much of it comes from private donations that might or might not be available any given week.
“We get hamburger in one-pound packages,” said Schell. “We try to distribute it based on family size. For example, a family of three people gets a one-pound package. A family of over seven would get a three-pound package.”
They do similar rationing for chicken and turkey. “A family of three or more would get a turkey,” she said. “Smaller families get a chicken.”
Milk and eggs are not available through the Food Pantry.
“We have 60 to 80 families in here each week,” said Schell. “That’s about 300 people. Each family gets $75 to $100 worth of food each visit.
“Families also get to choose what they want,” she said. In the past volunteers would bag up a set of grocery items and issue them to a family, but that changed under Schell’s direction.
Paper goods are something that St. Stephen’s Food Pantry provides. They have paper towels and toilet paper. This class of supplies cannot be purchased with food stamps in a retail store.
“Once in a while we have fresh vegetables if parishioners bring them in,” said Schell. Otherwise potatoes, corn and other vegetables are not available.
Like any food store, the Food Pantry gets inspected by the government. Since the township has no health department this is done by the state or the federal authorities. One of the requirements is that no food be stored on the floor.
Eagle Scout Michael Siegmund, as part of his Eagle Scout service project, built grocery shelves on wheels. The moveable shelves not only keep food off the floor but facilitate movement of food around the small efficiency-style apartment that the church has allocated for use by the Food Bank.
Doreen Wagner, a parishioner and one of the volunteers, is there when needed. “I feel I’ve been called to help,” she said.
Dottie Lesavoy and Scott Heefner pitch in. “I’m part of the vestry of the church,” said Heefner. “This is just one of the things I do to be active in the church.” Heefner drives a forklift for Moyer Lumber in Bethlehem. He has been volunteering for the past three months.
Donna Scott from Egypt said, “I was a client. Now I come here to volunteer.” Her assistant angel is her 21-year old daughter, Jennifer. They both are committed to helping feed the hungry.
While supervising the scheduling of volunteers and buying the food, Schell also volunteers her time. A woman of seemingly boundless energy, she also has a busy, full-time career as the national sales manager for an equine products company, Straight Arrow Products, Inc. She gets help in her Food Pantry duties from her assistant angel, daughter Denise Herman.
Schell’s impulse to give of herself seems limitless. Once she took an abused woman home with her until better arrangements could be made. She has been known to give her personal phone number to lonely elderly folks so they could “have someone to talk to.”
Their mission is to provide food for the needy in and around Whitehall. They buy food through the Second Harvest Food Bank with offerings left in St. Stephen’s “Hunger Bowl” and from other money donated. Other groups are helping, too: the Lions Club, the Women’s Club and the church’s youth organizations. About 2,000 pounds of food is received from the Boy Scout’s and the Postal Service’s annual food drives.
“Because some of our parishioners are pet lovers and don’t want to see people’s pets go hungry,” said Schell, “they give us pet food which we can pass on to those who need it.” She emphasized that all pet food is donated directly by the parish’s pet lovers.
The urge to help extends to making sure that the children in needy families get a Christmas gift. With the cooperation of parishioners and a local bank, Schell’s volunteers coordinate a “sponsor a child” program to make sure that the kids have a gift under their Christmas trees.
To volunteer, call (610) 435-3901. Angel wings are not required, but will be issued in due time.