The Phoenicia Food Pantry, a community resource since the 1980s that provides food and goods with no questions asked, is tackling food insecurity for the next generation by working with local groups to provide free lunches to Shandaken’s Summer Recreation Program.

Workers at the summer program began to notice that campers were showing up with empty stomachs and without packed lunches, said Sophie Grant, one of the pantry’s co-managers. The camp, which offers kids aged five through 16 with activities including swimming, nature walks and arts and crafts three days a week, sought help from the pantry and the Catskill Alliance for Housing and Preservation to help.

“Since we’re already storing tons of supplies and ordering food through the food bank, it just made sense,” Grant said.

The Catskill Alliance received a $3,000 grant from the Hudson Valley Foundation for Youth Health, then raised additional funds from the community. The two groups have a total of $7,500 to support the campers.

“We’re just excited to take this on as a project,” said Grant. “We’re really focused on providing whole nutritious meals and providing a nice variety.”

The pantry at 29 Church Street in Phoenicia, also established a partnership with local restaurant Pizza 28, which will make sandwiches and pizzas for the kids, while the pantry supplies snacks, fruit, vegetables and breakfast items. It will also cover the cost of supplies for Pizza 28.

“We don’t necessarily have the infrastructure or expertise to prepare the food,” Grant said. “Really grateful that they’re able to make the sandwiches. The kids are going to love the pizza.”

Pantry volunteers will pick up food from the pantry and Pizza 28 and deliver it to the camp.

“It’s really exciting to feel like a food access and food security-related project is something we have the capacity to take on,” Grant said.

Grant, along with co-manager Gesi Vella, have revamped the pantry since taking over in January. Until then, customers had to pick supplies from a list, then give it to a volunteer to be retrieved. Now, food and supplies are laid out in a grocery-store like setting and customers pick what they want from shelves. 

“Food is very personal,” Grant said. “Getting to choose what you want is something everyone should have the right to do.” 

Customers at the pantry can “shop” shelves for staples such as rice, pasta and peanut butter, comb through fresh produce laid out as if at a farmer’s market and choose from organic sourdough bread donated by Bread Alone. The pantry also refrigerated items such as hummus, milk and pickles, a freezer with meat and frozen vegetables and necessities including toilet paper. 

“Even though they’re not spending money, they’re shopping here,” Grant said. “If this is their weekly shop, we don’t want to prescribe anything. They can take what they want and what they like to eat.”

Grant wants the pantry’s layout to make the experience fun.

“People get to feast with their eyes and then go home and enjoy it,” she said. 

For Shandaken residents the food pantry is essential.

“It performs such a necessary function,” said one local, Earl Ahtleberg. “I get food stamps, but they’re not enough.” 

The fresh vegetables and bread are what makes the pantry so valuable to Ahtleberg and other residents such as Sharron Daddario, who said the pantry’s food helped her recover weight she lost after spending time in the hospital. 

“It’s a blessing,” she said. “It’s very nutritious and helpful.”

The pantry is open on Thursdays from 10 a.m. to 12 p.m., and has roughly 40 visitors a week. Volunteers also deliver food to the Pine Hill Community Center for about 20 residents who can’t make it to the Phoenicia pantry. 

Kyle Bredberg is an intern and contributing reporter. You can reach him at reporting@theoverlooknews.com.