Opportunity Council Asking Residents To Adopt A Pantry

Provided by the Bucks County Opportunity Council:

Bucks County Opportunity Council (BCOC) will be conducting its third annual Adopt-A-Pantry project, a collaborative, county-wide food drive to benefit the BCOC’s Food and Nutrition Network (FaNN) of more than 30 food pantries.

BCOC is asking local businesses, churches, organizations, families and individuals in Bucks and Montgomery counties to collect non-perishable food and hearty produce during the month of May. Through a partnership with Delaware Valley University, Adopt-A-Pantry has set a goal of 15,000 meals, or the equivalent of 10 tons of food.  

Adopt-a-Pantry 2015 will make sure that pantries are well stocked for the summer, when shelves often go bare. This is the time of year when children are home from school and not able to eat a free or reduced–price school lunch or breakfast, on which many Bucks County families depend.

As the county’s lead agency in emergency food distribution, the Opportunity Council’s Food and Nutrition Network distributed over 966,415 pounds of food to pantries during the most recently completed program year.  Furthermore, there were over 65,000 visits to food pantries by families and individuals within the county last year.

With an increased focus on providing healthy, nutritious food for pantry visitors, this year’s project hopes to collect hearty produce that will keep for a few days and is easy to transport, such as apples, corn, potatoes, onions, garlic, and other herbs and spices, in addition to the usual nonperishable goods.

Some of the groups or businesses who have already pledged this year are Johnson, Kendall & Johnson, the office of State Senator Chuck McIlhinney, AB-8 Waste Solutions, John Kennedy Ford – Feasterville, The Learning Experience – Doylestown and NY Life Insurance.

Bucks County Opportunity Council invites anyone who wants to participate to visit their website, www.bcoc.org, for the Adopt-A-Pantry pledge form, toolkit, a food drive guide and other materials. Participants are asked to drop-off food donations on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday, June 1 through 3 at the Delaware Valley University Student Center in Doylestown.  Donors can choose their drop off date and time on the pledge form. Financial donations and volunteers to help sort and pack the food are also welcome.  For more information, contact Joe Cuozzo at the Opportunity Council at 215-345-8175 ext. 204 or at jcuozzo@bcoc.org.