KATY METCALF
Gargoyle staff reporter
Posted Friday, Sept. 19, 2008

THE THIRD THURSDAY of every month, nearly 200 low-income and impoverished families and individuals (representing more than 500 benefiting from the services) line up at the doors of Urbana’s Wesley United Methodist Church, the first arriving as early as 10 in the morning, the last dispersing at around 8 p.m.

Why? The Wesley Evening Food Pantry.

Each month, it provides food and other household items such as detergent to low-income families in the Champaign-Urbana area.

Designed by Donna Camp and others, it’s aimed at the working poor — the people who most often need the help, but to whom it’s not often available.

Doors open at 5:30 p.m., which allows working individuals to arrive without leaving their job early and losing an important hourly wage versus traditional food pantries that open early in the afternoon or during business hours.

Wesley’s food pantry also distributes differently; although each household is allotted a certain amount of groceries depending on the number of people, they get to choose what they take.

For example, an 80-year-old woman probably won’t take a box of sugary cereal with marshmallows. A working mother with three children probably would.

Traditional food pantries often offer a set of preselected and packaged food items to each household, leaving that 80-year-old woman to throw away a box of sugary cereal, and that mother to toss away a can of prunes wishing her children were less picky: a waste of valuable food, leaving families still hungry.

Because Wesley orders food (including bulk items, to lower the price) from the Eastern Illinois Foodbank, it only costs $10 to feed a person for a week.

So what's the point of this? We're not even coming up with that $10. People always verbally give their support, but never their money, and even less often their time. (I could turn this into a long discussion of popular morals — et tu, society? — but I won't.)

Now, this isn't a draft letter, I'm just saying:

We repackage bulk foods the second Sunday of the month, 9:30 to 11:30 a.m. at Wesley UMC, 1203 W. Green St., Urbana. It's tall and pointy and you can see it from Kenney Gym. Impossible to miss. If one were to show up, one would probably get a cookie or a donut or something.

We serve food the third Thursday of the month, and if one were to volunteer (foodpantry@wesleyui.org for training information), one would also be much loved.

In the near future, there will be places around the school for monetary donations. Again, one would be much loved.

Just saying.

An earlier version of this column appeared as an entry in the OG staff blog.