WEDNESDAY WORDS

FROM METRO MINISTRIES, INC.

September 22, 2021

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Spotlight on: North Salem UMC Pantry

This past Saturday morning, I visited North Salem UMC Food Pantry to check out how this ministry's operation works. The pantry was one of the recipients of funds from the anonymous Family Foundation back in early May. In their Expression of Interest, they described an unusual need their pantry had, they needed to purchase a conveyor belt! Our Grants team couldn’t quite visualize this need but ultimately agreed to award the funds. After visiting the pantry, hearing how this need came about and seeing their operation in action, I have no doubt the right decision was made.

North Salem UMC’s food pantry has been in operation for 15 years, under the unfailing leadership of Rebecca (Becky) Compton, a certified Lay Leader. What began as a response to a handful of congregants in need, initially operating from a small storage area, soon expanded to serving up to 45 households initially once a month , now twice a month. Because of their  location, the pantry is visited not only by Hendricks County residents, but by folks from Boone, Montgomery and Putnam counties as well. Rebecca has built partnerships with Gleaners and with the Hendricks County Food Pantry Coalition, which have provided access to items like meat and produce.

The pantry had been a choice pantry prior to the pandemic but had to shift to pre-packed boxes distributed in a drive-thru manner. This past August, the operation just switched back to allowing guests to shop. Each pantry day, 10 -12 volunteers arrive early to help with set up. The volunteers are from throughout the community, not just North Salem congregants, with a few new (masked) faces each week. The basement fellowship hall is transformed to an open shopping space with multiple stations set up for safe physical distancing. Becky assigns each volunteer a task and quickly trains the new folks before gathering volunteers for prayer.

As guests arrive in the parking lot, Mr. Becky (aka Bill Compton) registers each guest by capturing their zip code, number of household members and their ages. The guests are instructed to enter the building and use either the stairs or the church’s lift (similar to an elevator) to access the basement. No more than three shoppers are allowed to enter at one time. Once a guest is in the basement, they are given two clothespins with identical numbers and a rolling cart. One pin stays on the cart, and the other with the guest. The guest then goes from station to station and chooses the items they need. Volunteers at each station greet the guests and help put items on the cart and in bags. Once a guest has been through all of the stations (including one for pet food and another with hygiene items), another volunteer takes their cart, and the guest goes back upstairs. The volunteer then heads to the delivery area for the items to be taken to ground level for pick up by the guest.

Here is where the conveyor belt comes in. Items are loaded on a conveyor belt that is angled to send the boxes and bags up through an open doorway where more volunteers remove the items and place in the guest’s vehicle. Prior to the belt system, items were carried upstairs by volunteers, but with the pandemic switch to pre-packed boxes, one guest’s box could weigh 70 pounds or more. So, then the lift was multi-purposed as a freight elevator, until the lift actually broke. One of the volunteers then devised a manually-operated pulley system until the lift could be fixed, but that required physical strength that many volunteers didn’t have. When the lift was ultimately repaired, Becky was told that it was strictly to be used for people and not as a freight elevator. She knew she needed a long-term solution and began researching the cost of conveyor belts and found an Indianapolis company that would install one going from the basement to ground level. Her next hurdle was finding funding, as the pantry ran on a tight budget from individual and local business donations. It was around this time that Metro announced the anonymous Family Foundation’s intent to distribute funds to churches in response to the pandemic. Becky immediately submitted her Expression of Interest, resulting in the operation they have today.

Metro is pleased to have been able to facilitate this pantry operations upgrade. The community of North Salem and beyond is clearly blessed by the folks who make the food pantry available and accessible twice each month.

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