and welcome to the personal touch in peter's township my name is tony snow kautsky and i'm the host for the show the pierce town the personal touch in peter's township is a show about how many of our wonderful residents are reaching out to hel others both within our community and outside of it many of us are blessed and fortunate to have the time talents in the means to provide a helping hand to others who find themselves in difficult situations today will highlight one special way in which a variety of peters township people are volunteering to help people who do not have enough income to pay for food and other staples usually when we hear the word starving or not having enough to eat pictures of the may she ate the children in third world countries come into our minds we picture long lines of homeless people waiting for a meal in the soup kitchen statistics for our area on hunger are alarming the greater pittsburgh community food banks website provides this data about our county washington county twenty five thousand people or more food insecure that's a rate of twelve point two percent children who are food insecure number over eight thousand the population and poverty numbers twenty one thousand eight hundred people that's a poverty rate of ten point eight percent in washington county of those children under eighteen  poverty there are over six thousand of them and believe it or not seniors over the age of sixty five in poverty in our county number well over twenty five hundred in october of two thousand and fourteen the unemployment rate was four point two percent the partner distribution organization of the greater picture community food bank which serves washington county has also provided us with information about our area they served over five thousand four hundred fifty three people throughout the county in october two thousand and fourteen out of those who received food assistance six hundred ninety six individuals were first time recipients meaning that they had never received emergency food care during the previous twelve months in the fiscal year two thousand and thirteen two thousand and fourteen a million point six pounds of food were distributed to individuals and agencies throughout this county the interesting part of that figure is that out of the total pounds of food distributed only four hundred one thousand pounds were from the government commodities over six hundred fifty two thousand pounds were donated and six hundred fourteen thousand pounds of food were purchased one of the folks washington county food bank distribution centers is located right here is peter sound chip and it's called the peter sounds of food pantry it is coordinated by two of our residen lauren orton and ruth bra ski both of whom or with me today on the show is so nice to have the two of you here today to tell us a little bit about the peters township food pain pantry and how it's operating here i'm going to the conversation with a little bit of background information if you could give it to us on the food pantry a little bit of history i'll open up with lauren and ruth you chime in here as we need to thank you for having us tony need because it was that at the time that the still mills were laying off and you might think well there might not have had been too many steelworkers in peter's but middle management was also being laid off so it was when our redeemer decided to add on to their fellowship hall moved to center presbyterian church and it was there for several years and then they were doing some remodeling so we had to move again and we managed to get the space at peace lutheran church and let's say well us and i forget we have to thank bishop party for opening his church to the food pantry and had a free and reduced lunch rate of just under three percent so at least two point seven two point eight percent of our population of students were on free and reduced lunch which is poverty level and people often don't know that and so there is an element here within peter's township but are you limited to serving people just within peter's township we are not that's that's one  of the things that people don't quite understand is that there are needs in peter's township and your neighbor may be having a crisis financially that you may never know about and it is for us as the community to support these people and that's what we try to do with dignity and judgment go ahead ruth you can chime in so well a lot of times people will say to a fixed income and they're living in this so it helps a lot to house area food where items might cost a little more on average it's hard to make ends meet when you're doing on social security a fixed rate and that people don't often realize that seniors are part of this a statistic from the food was kind of alarming to me that we have that element to worry about not only children but also the element of  people over sixty five who continue to live here pay taxes here and have other burdens way and we do we do serve other neighborhoods besides peters township that is our main northern washington county ok and we try to take what is most convenient for people to drive to so camels bird has their own food pantry but we have it as a senior citizens apartment building that is closer to us so we we try to accommodate people so you're not a food bank you're a food pantry what's the distinction between the two bank is much larger and they deal more with the government getting government food and so forth and like under the under washington county there are i think twenty one or twenty two food pantries there's actually more which i was surprised to find  out there are no i'm going to have to put in my cheaters for this but there are twenty well there are twenty three pantries in washington county there are sixteen senior housing pantries which is that would be held  an apartment building in an apartment building and then there's also six c s f p sites also and i can have explain that later on that we do so we have  talked to other pantries in washington county and some people have to travel to an hour to get to their pantry we are very blessed to be surrounded by close proximity to a lot of people that food for a while where they know about the peters township food pantry they can contact the greater washington food bank and they will give you the guidelines of financial what to look at financially  your income level and be able to provide you what the closest pantry is to your where you live so you just can't say walk up to piece redo murder on the day that you're distributing food and say i'm here for free for the absolutely you could ok but you have to be armed with a license a proof of income what else would you need license proof and come proof of address and we can sign you up on the spot e parishioners are excuse me some churches have you know suggested coming to the food bank or food pantry but it's a word of mouth i think and  desperate times people start looking at what their options are trying to find it do you have a web presence at all we do we have if you go to w w w peter's township pantry dot org we just set up a new website we're trying to get information out there about volunteering and donations and and the thing else that that would provide information to not only peters township residents but clients that may need to use our facility good and hopefully we'll put that information up so the audience can see that the one hand people would have that handy too so that if you know of people who need that information you can give it to them right here from our audience once they see that we're going to take a little pause here for a commercial break and then we're going to come back and learn a little bit more about the operation of the peters about where does your funding for all of this come from well the food bank which is the greater washington they are funded through the state they also are funded through corporations and they also get a lot of donations our pantry we have very generous donor some peters township and we're blessed to live in this township where people are generous and many people donate on a regular basis we also have great food drives from the school district they peters township businesses do that we've had the boy scouts and girl scouts we've had families at christmas do individual drives in the neighborhood we had two young men from the high school this last december do a fabulous job doing a food drive  his rounds of the library in churches places like that and he picks it up and takes it to his story piece ok so you store the food at peace until distribution time we do but we also have other  churches that have drop offs and the like to include them to make it is easy as possible for all of you the library our redeemer lutheran st david's a pest couple trinity methodist and peter call all collect on a regular basis it's wonderful so you pull that together and the distribution as it weekly is every other week yes once a month once a month client can all me go to a food pantry one time a month and they cannot if they come to our food pantry they can't go to any other food pantry and when they come to the food pantry what is there for them is it just food stuffs or do you have other things that are available we try to have as many things as possible set up sort of like a grocery store so that they could choose what they need we always have a need for paper products paper products for products toilet paper paper towels even laundry detergent that's always good we are one of the few trees that does allow our clients to choose what they need and what they want many trees give you a box full of the items this allows us to or allows our clients to pick what they need many have medical conditions that that say we have grapefruit  juice they will not be able to use that so they are able to bypass that so we are really really lucky that they can come in and choose what they want and it's based on the size of their family how many  boxes or cans they may take at that particular item to us going into the store like it is and they take the items that they need and kind of check out with them do you account for all of that we do kno we have volunteers that assist the clients and picking out and then hoping that they don't take more and then they need if we have an overabundance of a particular item then where a little more generous that month with that have these volunteers what do the volunteers do and where you get these volunteers we have great volunteers again and this is a great township to live and we do me we distribute the second friday of every month and on thursday the day before the distribution date we have our volunteers show up and take everything from our storage unit that we did not pass out and our goal is to volunteers how do you get them do they just hear about it and they call and ask or or if that also also seeks through the churches we asked the churches to put in their we have older people that are going to warmer weather and we have a fluctuation of people coming and going but there's a real solid core to our volunteers operate all year round or are you limited to certain months of the year all year we are all here every month every month and we we we see a little bit more i think during the winter months than we do during the summer but anybody and peter sound chip is welcome to come to the food pantry and volunteer we would love to have you it's a real eye opener sometimes when you live in the community such as ours that you don't get to see this too often so do you have any future plans for the organization at all i mean you have to store food you try to get rid of as much as you can because i would imagine space is limited you know the church probably needs its favorable then very peace lutheran has been very generous and giving us base that is they don't touch it which is very nice  future i think i share this with you before my goal is to not need the food bank as much to to get food from there by allowing other communities to get more i think as peter's township we need to support our community and we are doing a great job and i think we can always there's always room for improvement and that's the only goals i i have to have an many gifted people there salute people with talents out here in peter's township and we just were trying to rein in those different people and i did get the opportunity to go and visit and hopefully during the show we're going to have opportunities for people to see some shots of what it's like just to get the food in i wasn't even there for the distribution part of it but just to get the the food can you share with us when you are doing this behind the scenes you're coordinating this what kind of other things are you doing that maybe i didn't see you know i'm sure there's paperwork to go and i do most of the paperwork and because i've are forms that they have to fill out and every client record lists of when they signed up have to resign every july and that's from the state you just have to do it that way and so in july the waiting time is a little bit longer because everybody has to sign in and i have to make sure the phone numbers are right and all how many people are in the family and all that sort of thing and then they have several papers that they have to trying to get the word out now lars very good to look reports each month ok so you have to make sure everything's all in order and get the information back and do you go to other different organizations that and present to them so that they may want to support or to companies you know that i just on local come right out there that are interested in supporting you if not with volunteers maybe with  monetary donations absolutely he could probably use that to we've had we've had a lot of that we just had mcmurray elementary schools leadership program come in with about twenty students ran a food drive anybody out there in our viewing audience would want to help and they're interested you can and you can also provide donations so we will have the information up there so that you can contact laura or ruth and provide that help to them and to all those who are in need and i can't thank the two view enough for being willing to come here today to share with people in the audience about what goes on with the peters township food pantry so often we hear about these things but we're not cognizant of actually how the operation works who were serving and where the money all goes so truly you have you in the other volunteers have demonstrated that a personal touch does exist in peter's township because it's lawrence said we're so blessed and we're so fortunate to have the time and talents and means to provide a helping hand to others who find themselves in difficult situations whether permanently or temporarily and getting a show out about this is is not done just on arse alone but i want to think brian vaughan i and kills the sylvester robin hudson frickin the students of peter's township high school media classes for their help in putting together this program the show is going to close today with a short video about the peters township food pantry program and it was created by our own kelsey sylvester the video will show you how caring people in peter's township like laura and ruth are helping other adults and children who are facing hunger due to poverty if you your business organization would like to become involved in the peters township food pantry program please contact either laurie or ruth the program coordinators their contact information is on the peters township food pantry website thank you so much for viewing the show and remember that you too can reach out and help somebody else whether it's in peter's township or beyond because it's all about the personal touch the peters township pantry is a subsidiary of the greater washington county to think once a month a truck comes in from the bridge food product i enjoy volunteering here because i want to make a difference in the community we have friday of clients to come here with different needs and every month for different people like me and like because it makes me feel like i'm giving back i actually started coming because i needed persistence i've been on disability and i feel like i'm giving back by helping out of the  tables and then on distribution day clients who come in and find the food that they need my job is to come in and go into a food pantry and whole food out set up on the tables to organize a you know when i first moved here i needed some help so i just feel like now that i've just gone there i'm just happy and it's nice to meet the people here you know we have a nice quiet talent for the benefit is meeting a lot of new people and getting to make new friends