Northside Food Pantry

“I just want to thank all the staff and volunteers for the Food Pantry! It was my first time having to come last month—a different life change—but your kindness and patience made it easy. Thanks again for being the light of Jesus in a time of need.”

Food Pantry Client 2023

“I was new at Second Church. I first volunteered at the food pantry to meet people of the church and to discover what made this church so special. In the pantry I worked with volunteers who found joy in service to the community and especially the people in need in our own neighborhoods. In the volunteers, I found smiling faces with hardworking hands and minds. In the clients we serve, I found faces with smiles and voices of thanks for our church and the help in providing for their families. In short, in the food pantry I think I have found the heart and soul of Second Presbyterian Church.

Volunteering for a shift at the Northside Missions Food Pantry is the most joyous and rewarding hard work I have ever experienced. In the pantry groups of volunteers provide many services to support the mission. Drivers pick up donations, stockers then sort and stock the shelves with foods purchased and delivered from Gleaners, Midwest, St. Vincent DePaul, and others. During the summer we are stocked with fresh vegetables grown and harvested by volunteers in the church garden. Then the joy begins as up to seventy families from our neighborhood come in to fill their grocery carts and home pantries. Their smiles and thanks provide us, the volunteers with the compensation for our few hours work. The food pantry for me is a gift of opportunity.”

~David Champa, Food Pantry Volunteer