The Community Caring Center, a food pantry located at 151 Wall St. in Auburn, serves meals to hundreds of elderly and disabled people and needy families in the Auburn area each year.
Jill Connor / The Citizen
Scott Grove, of Auburn, helps unload a truck that just came back from area supermarkets that donate food weekly to the Community Caring Center food pantry. Grove's other main job at the pantry is to cut up the larger piles of cardboard boxes so they can be recycled.
Scott Grove, of Auburn, helps unload a truck that just came back from area supermarkets that donate food weekly to the Community Caring Center food pantry. Grove's other main job at the pantry is to cut up the larger piles of cardboard boxes so they can be recycled.
Four days per week, the center utilizes volunteers who deliver food to those needy residents. But as the years pass and the volunteers age, the center is having more and more difficulty finding area residents willing to donate their time.
Most of the volunteers are seniors, so center coordinator Nancy Murphy is searching for new residents willing to help out.
“Volunteering for us is a lot easier than people might think,” Murphy said last week. “Even as little as one hour every two weeks would be a tremendous help.”
Many of the center's volunteers, she continued, are from the local Retired and Senior Volunteer (RSVP) program. “We have one lady from there who's 93,” she said, noting that several others are in their 70s and 80s.
The center is quite different from other programs in that it delivers boxes of meals that have not yet been prepared. Its main resource is the Food Bank of Central New York in East Syracuse, which provides the center with canned fruits and vegetables, frozen dinners, cereal and bread, among other items.
“We get about $8,500 in grant money (each year) from them,” she explained. “I call and order food from them, and they deduct what I take.”
Murphy said that the center's biggest cash resource is funds donated by the annual TomatoFest in Auburn's Emerson Park.
Though the annual TomatoFest donations vary from year to year, Murphy said the funds are never more than $1,000.
“It might be $800, it might be $1,000. It depends on how much they clear,” she explained. “Last year, for example, the donation wasn't all that much; it was a bad TomatoFest because it rained so much.”
One of the event's biggest obstacles in raising funds, she continued, is that TomatoFest organizers must pay Cayuga County $2,400 annually to rent the park pavilion.
“Every person I've ever told that to, their mouth just falls open,” she said. “There's no excuse for it, because that land was donated to the people.
“If that rent wasn't so much, I could do things like give gift baskets to the elderly during the holidays, but for now I just can't.”
On the other hand, Murphy continued, some local food establishments and grocery stores regularly donate food to the center.
“We get donations from Wegmans almost every day,” she said, noting that other grocery stores and fast-food restaurants like Kentucky Fried Chicken contribute food as well.
In addition, the central food bank has what's called a Fresh Food program, in which the food bank travels to several Wegmans stores in the region with refrigerated trucks.
“Once a month, they go to seven different Wegmans, I believe, collecting all this food. Then they bring it to us, and it really helps supplement our needs,” she said.
Overall, Murphy said people might be surprised at how many area residents rely on hers and other food pantries.
“If you have a family of seven, let's say, and you take them boxes of food for three days, that's 21 meals,” she explained.
Multiply that number by three to include breakfast, lunch and dinner, and that's a total of more than 60 individual meals just for one family.
“I know the work we do is great, but it can always be better,” she said. “And we can start by hopefully recruiting more volunteers.”
Want to help?
Anyone interested in volunteering at the Community Caring Center can call the center at 253-3437 from 9 to 10:30 a.m. Tuesday, Thursday, Friday or Saturday.
Most of the volunteers are seniors, so center coordinator Nancy Murphy is searching for new residents willing to help out.
“Volunteering for us is a lot easier than people might think,” Murphy said last week. “Even as little as one hour every two weeks would be a tremendous help.”
Many of the center's volunteers, she continued, are from the local Retired and Senior Volunteer (RSVP) program. “We have one lady from there who's 93,” she said, noting that several others are in their 70s and 80s.
The center is quite different from other programs in that it delivers boxes of meals that have not yet been prepared. Its main resource is the Food Bank of Central New York in East Syracuse, which provides the center with canned fruits and vegetables, frozen dinners, cereal and bread, among other items.
“We get about $8,500 in grant money (each year) from them,” she explained. “I call and order food from them, and they deduct what I take.”
Murphy said that the center's biggest cash resource is funds donated by the annual TomatoFest in Auburn's Emerson Park.
Though the annual TomatoFest donations vary from year to year, Murphy said the funds are never more than $1,000.
“It might be $800, it might be $1,000. It depends on how much they clear,” she explained. “Last year, for example, the donation wasn't all that much; it was a bad TomatoFest because it rained so much.”
One of the event's biggest obstacles in raising funds, she continued, is that TomatoFest organizers must pay Cayuga County $2,400 annually to rent the park pavilion.
“Every person I've ever told that to, their mouth just falls open,” she said. “There's no excuse for it, because that land was donated to the people.
“If that rent wasn't so much, I could do things like give gift baskets to the elderly during the holidays, but for now I just can't.”
On the other hand, Murphy continued, some local food establishments and grocery stores regularly donate food to the center.
“We get donations from Wegmans almost every day,” she said, noting that other grocery stores and fast-food restaurants like Kentucky Fried Chicken contribute food as well.
In addition, the central food bank has what's called a Fresh Food program, in which the food bank travels to several Wegmans stores in the region with refrigerated trucks.
“Once a month, they go to seven different Wegmans, I believe, collecting all this food. Then they bring it to us, and it really helps supplement our needs,” she said.
Overall, Murphy said people might be surprised at how many area residents rely on hers and other food pantries.
“If you have a family of seven, let's say, and you take them boxes of food for three days, that's 21 meals,” she explained.
Multiply that number by three to include breakfast, lunch and dinner, and that's a total of more than 60 individual meals just for one family.
“I know the work we do is great, but it can always be better,” she said. “And we can start by hopefully recruiting more volunteers.”
Want to help?
Anyone interested in volunteering at the Community Caring Center can call the center at 253-3437 from 9 to 10:30 a.m. Tuesday, Thursday, Friday or Saturday.
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