Guests are limited to one shopping trip per month. This is controlled by a simple punch card system. Some guests come regularly every month. Others come because the grocery money had to be spent on medicine for the children that month or they do not qualify for other programs. The growth of the food pantry has had a profound impact on the parish.
Parishioners are here all the time now.
People are coming in to staff the pantry for the day, shop, pack bags of groceries, or put away grocery deliveries all day. Often parishioners just drop by to see what is going on. The future includes plans to host a Vacation Bible School particularly for the children of food pantry guests and to begin new outreach ministries to work on the causes of hunger and poverty. There is already a GED class meeting at St. James, as well as parenting and pre-kindergarten classes through the local Joint Vocational School. St. James parishioners have not been personally involved in those projects . . .