by Alex Brooks
The food pantry run by San Damiano Family Support Services continues to be busy, serving about 50 families a month from its building near the top of Potter Hill in Petersburgh, NY. This food pantry has been in continuous operation since 1984. The pantry gets most of its food from the Regional Food Bank of Northeastern NY in Latham.
The food pantry invites people who can’t afford to buy food to call them on Monday or Tuesday from 10 am to 2 pm to request food assistance. The phone number is 658-3530.
[private]From these requests they put together an order for the regional food bank, and they normally pick up the food from the food bank on Fridays.
The food pantry will also respond to emergency requests for food when necessary.
The food pantry is run primarily by Joe and Wanda DiFusco, who live in what they call the “Mother House,” a larger structure behind the food pantry house. They also have volunteers who help. Some of those volunteers are members of the San Damiano Franciscan Community, and some are just local people who want to help out with the group’s good work.
The Franciscan community is a group of people who come together with the aim of living their lives as much as possible in the spirit of St. Francis of Assisi. They have monthly meetings, normally attended by 15 to 20 people, and other events and gatherings for prayer, study, and work on their outreach ministries. The group is canonically approved and accepted by Bishop Howard Hubbard of the Albany Roman Catholic Diocese.
The monthly meetings and other events take place at the “Mother House,” which has a small chapel in it. San Damiano Family Support Services has also recently opened offices in Cambridge, NY, which is the center of their extensive work with people with developmental disabilities. They have five Medicaid Service Coordinators based in this office working with clients with developmental disabilities from nine counties to get services they need to learn to live a fuller, more independent life. This work is funded by Medicaid. San Damiano also does family advocacy, elder care advocacy, counseling, free loans of medical equipment and runs a program assisting “wounded warriors.”
While Joe and Wanda say they often hear “heartbreaking stories” from their clients who come to the food bank, they are too busy helping people to study their clientele in any comprehensive way. But the Regional Food Bank of
Northeastern New York does do research into the clientele of their food bank network. Their web site offers a profile of the people they serve. They are typically part of hard working families living below the federal poverty line. Of the households served by the Regional Food Bank, 39% have at least one adult working, 69% live below the federal poverty line and 39% receive food stamps. The median monthly income is $700. Among all households served by the Regional Food Bank’s emergency feeding programs, about 3/4 are “food insecure,” which means they sometimes do not know where their next meal will come from, and almost half have experienced hunger, because they did not have any food to eat. Clients are often forced to make choices between paying for food or for everyday necessities. The food bank has found that 45% of its clients have had to choose between food and utilities or between food and housing.
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