Editor’s note: This is the first part of a series looking at food insecurity throughout the region and the volunteers who step in to help. The series will continue Wednesday.

By Kelly Monitz Socha

ksocha@tnonline.com

Nicole Pollinger is no stranger to food insecurity.

The community school coordinator at Panther Valley Elementary School grew up with surplus food such as ham and cheese, and ran a food pantry at the age of 7 with her aunt at a church in Allentown.

She understands what it’s like to not have the opportunity to shop for specialty items, such as Dunkaroos and other treats her children now ask her for in the grocery store.

“This is nothing new to me,” she said. “I know how it feels to be in a line and not have the opportunity to always go to a grocery store and be able to buy necessarily what we want.”

Pollinger is one of the forces behind the Panther Valley Community Food Pantry, which is housed in the elementary school and began through a community partnership with St. Luke’s University Health Network and others.

The pantry, started in 2021, distributes some 30,000 pounds of food to those in need within the school district and surrounding area the third Wednesday of each month, serving 902 individuals or 380 families.

Much of the food comes from the Second Harvest Food Bank, but the pantry has other partners in the area, such as Giant Foods, Pollinger said.

The need within the Panther Valley School District, which encompasses Nesquehoning, Summit Hill, Lansford and Coaldale, is great, said Robert Palazzo, principal at PVES.

The reported poverty level at his school was 57% when he came in 2017, and it’s now climbed to 81%, Palazzo said, adding that enrollment has jumped from 515 to 630 in that same time frame.

Districtwide enrollment has been trending upward for the past three years, and last year was in the top five school districts in the state in percent increase growth. Enrollment is now at 1,949, up from 1,866 last year.

A changing community

The whole dynamic of the community is changing, too, Pollinger said.

“They’re no longer the people who grew up here and stayed here,” she said. “It’s becoming a whole new culture.”

Among those at the December food distribution were people who moved to the Panther Valley from New York City, El Salvador and Honduras.

One of them, Efigenia Sanchez, bought a home in Coaldale during the pandemic, fleeing Queens, New York, and seeking a better life for her family in rural Pennsylvania.

Rents in the area, she said, are far more affordable in the Panther Valley, where $800 can get a family a whole home, as opposed to a cramped one-bedroom apartment in the city.

“There is an opportunity here for people to grow,” Sanchez said.

Still, she needs to manage her money to provide for her children, Genesis, 7, and Lowid, 8, and the food pantry helps out a lot. She estimates she saves around $400 a month in groceries, stocking up on essentials such as rice and beans - staples in a Hispanic home.

“Prices are going up,” Sanchez said. “Now, I only have to purchase milk.”

Palazzo sees many people, such as Sanchez, moving from urban areas, because of the lower cost of living. The rural areas, he said, don’t have the same resources to help and support families that people find in big cities.

“Rural poverty is sometimes even more difficult than urban poverty, because there are less resources,” he said. “Everyone is competing for the same resources. So, that’s what you see in this area.”

Unlike a larger places where there may be 10 organizations providing services, there may only be two or three in rural communities, he said.

Newcomers are often surprised by the lack of resources, services and even public transportation, he said. People without a vehicle will often share a ride with others to come to a monthly food pantry.

The Panther Valley has other pantries, such as Meed’s Memorial United Methodist Church’s community food pantry, which serves about 22 families in Nesquehoning, and Grace Community Church in Lansford, Pollinger said.

Grace Community Church’s pantry, which operates the fourth Saturday of the month from 10 a.m. to noon, has seen the number of people it serves nearly double from 2022 to 2023, said Vicky Benack, pantry director.

In July 2022, the pantry helped 161 and the number increased to 311 the following July, she said. Distribution numbers climbed to 339 in October and again in November to 420, she said.

“The holiday months, we do see an increase in the numbers,” Benack said.

The church recently acquired the former English Congregational Church down the street and hopes to expand its pantry, possibly doing two distributions a month, she said.

The church would also like to offer hot meals with a soup kitchen to fill the growing need in the community, Benack said, but much is dependent on grants and donations.

Both Grace Community Church and the Panther Valley Community Food Pantry partner with Second Harvest and provide not only shelf-stable items, such as canned goods, but also fresh produce, frozen and refrigerated items such as cheese, milk or eggs, depending on availability.

“One of the things that I noticed about the food pantry is there are a lot of items that would be costly at the grocery store - a lot of different produce,” Palazzo said. “Where families wouldn’t be able to be eating fresh produce, they’re able to.”

Pollinger, who selects the items available, said she thinks about the families coming in to the pantry and wants them to be able to have the same choices as those with more resources.

“I look at them as people,” she said. “They deserve the same, to pick out food that others are able to do in a grocery store. We just want them to feel as human as possible.

“They’re already standing in a line for a long time,” Pollinger said.

Connecting families

The line for the pantry often goes from the schools’ front doors, along the sidewalk and out to Catawissa Street with people lining up an hour or more before the pantry opens.

This month’s line was no exception. Shortly after the doors opened and with more than half of the participants inside, the line still snaked along the front of the school and out along the semicircular driveway.

Inside, volunteers - many of them staff at the school and St. Luke’s - placed out this month’s food choices, which included hams, pork loins, whole chickens, hamburger, shrimp, pistachios, walnuts, butternut squash, grapes, apples, grapefruit, cheese and eggs - in addition to pantry staples.

Pollinger wanted the families to have food items that they would normally have during the holidays, especially with the distribution falling a week and a half away from Christmas.

“We try to have the families have those same (holiday) traditions,” she said, “and not have to worry about the cost.”

Many of the families that come have children in the school, and the kids are excited to see their principal, teachers and other staff members at the pantry and to be able to interact with them, Palazzo said.

“There’s a reason we became a community school, you know, I think the food pantry really became the center of it, naturally,” he said. “From there, we try to branch out with other things.

“Hopefully, we’re launching some parent education classes in the next few months and continue to expand what we provide families to help them stay on their feet,” Palazzo said.

Growing up, Pollinger said her family was never starving. But her mom taught them the importance of eating what they did have, and made connections in the community to make sure they had food, she said.

Now, Pollinger is connecting other families with the resources they need, and finds joy in seeing the community come together each month through the pantry.

“I enjoy seeing the families talk in the lines,” she said, “and it makes me feel good to know that at least that night, those children will have food.”