Church Pantry Closes;
TEA's Need Increases

Tulare - Closure of the food pantry at Vineyard Christian Fellowship which served about 1,400 families a month has increased Tulare Emergency Aid's need for food.

Emergency Aid had served between 1,200 and 1,300 families a month before the Sept. 1 closure of the Vineyard pantry, but those numbers are increasing, said Jan Donwen, acting Emergency Aid director and board president.

“Our number one need is food,” Donwen said. “Monetary contributions would be wonderful so we can go purchase it.”

Emergency Aid, like other non-profit food pantries, can buy more with a dollar than most individuals can because of their connections with food sources, she and others in the field said.

But that does not mean food donations are not welcome. The organization will be putting food barrels in the schools, churches and other locations around town starting in November, Donwen said.

Emergency Aid is also in need of more volunteers, since the end of summer has meant the return to school for its C-SET student workers.

‘Lack of Food’

Susan Henard, co-pastor at Vineyard, said two factors prompted her church's decision to close the pantry.

“A lack of food has been a big part,” Henard said, reporting the pantry had distributed food two days a week until a month ago when the volume of food was so low the church went down to one day a week.

“I couldn't have people stand in line for such a small amount of food,” she said.
Sandy Beals, executive director of FoodLink for Tulare County and a major source of food for both Vineyard and Emergency Aid, said the amount of food it supplies pantries as remained “fairly stable for the last several years, but there's many more people coming in for help, so we have to stretch is farther.”

A second and more important reason for Vineyard's decision to close the pantry was the feeling that the lack of food was a sign God was trying to take the church in a different direction – one in which the church could fulfill its mission to feed the soul as well as the body.

“I felt like the Lord had been showing me we had been about numbers … and we weren't making a difference in the lives of the people,” Henard said. “We had become so big that we had lost sight of the ministry God had called us to – to use food as a tool to be able to pray with people … to bring them to the Kingdom of God.”

When the church began accepting food from FoodLink about four years ago, it was no longer allowed to put fliers about the church in its grocery bags, she said. “I compromised, because I wanted to have more food to give, even though I knew what we were doing was a good thing and people's lives were changed.”

In lieu of the pantry, the church has decided to conduct an outreach to people living on South K Street.

“We'll be going into trailer parks and motels on the third Saturday of every month and taking bags of food and going in and asking people how we can pray for them,” Henard said. “We'll be building relationships.”

For nine years, prior to operating the food pantry, Vineyard Christian conducted a similar ministry to residents on North J Street and, as a result, many people accepted Christ into their lives, were baptized and remained connected with the church.

The church will serve two locations on South K, including a park across the street from the Tulare County Fairgrounds, which has about 65 trailers, Henard said. “I'm still praying about the other one.”

USDA Distributions

Vineyard Christian will still be a USDA food distribution site every other month, Henard said, adding the next distribution is scheduled for Sept. 24.
She and Donwen also plan to meet this week to talk about doing a joint Christmas outreach.

“They don't have room, so if they want to sign up people, we can have it here,” she said.

FoodLink is looking for ways to help fill the void that the closing of Vineyard's pantry has left.

“What we'd like to do, because of the loss of Vineyard, which was one of the largest food pantries, … is get one of our Nutrition-to-Go sites in Tulare, Beals said, stressing she can make no promises yet but is trying “very, very hard” to get one.
Such a site would provide fresh fruits and vegetables, which is more than double the volume it was a year ago, she said.

The estimated cost for FoodLink to take on another site – it already has 20 in the county – is $40,000, she said.

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