My Day Volunteering at Whitehall Church of Christ Food Bank

Patch is all about serving communities, so much so that the company pays its employees for time spent volunteering at local charitable organizations five times per year. Patch also gives 5 percent of its ad inventory to charities. It's all part of what Patch is calling its Give 5 effort.

The Baldwin-Whitehall Patch's second Give 5 day of 2011 ended up being today, April 15.

As the B-W Patch editor, I had the pleasure of choosing an organization to volunteer at this week. After , I chose the  branch of the Greater Pittsburgh Community Food Bank.

I first learned of the Whitehall Church of Christ's food-bank services when I visited the church's Preacher Jeffrey Dillinger back in December during the infancy stages of the Baldwin-Whitehall Patch's building process.

Dillinger and I met on what just happened to be a Friday, which is one of the two days per week that his church's aptly named Fellowship Hall acts as a branch of the Pittsburgh Food Bank.

In fact, Fridays are the busier of the two food-bank days at the Whitehall Church of Christ. The church gets it shipment from the Pittsburgh Food Bank's Duquesne headquarters on Fridays.

And what a shipment it is!

The food that comes in on Fridays gets the church through both of its weekly sessions–the other being on Tuesdays. Each session runs from approximately 11:15 a.m. to approximately 1:30 p.m.

Some weeks, the church has leftovers and schedules a third day to hand out food. Still, with at least eight sessions per month (and approximately four large shipments), I thought that the volunteers at the church could use an extra set of hands unloading food, if only for a day.

I arrived at the church at 10:15 a.m. and interviewed a few of the volunteers, including Shirley Keller, who lives on Dewalt Drive in  and is a member of the church.

Keller, the coordinator of the church's food-bank operation, took over the reins from the late Dot Gruber in 2005 when Gruber passed away.

Keller was my teacher for Food Bank 101. She explained that there are three other food banks in Baldwin-Whitehall–at , at  and at the .

Keller said that each food bank has its own rules but that they must all follow similar guidelines as laid out by the Pittsburgh Food Bank umbrella.

For instance, even though the Whitehall Church of Christ's food bank is open twice per week, individuals and families can only take advantage of the charity once per month.

When those people are allowed to take food from the food bank, there is a limit on how much that they can take. The determining factors are household size and household income.

For example, a one-person household with less than or exactly $16,245 of yearly income qualifies to take home a limited amount of food, while a two- or three-person household with the same income level would qualify for more food.

A one-person household with more than $16,245 of yearly income would not qualify for any assistance from the food bank, but a two-person household with less than or exactly $21,855 would. A two-person household with more than $21,855 would not.

In other words, the level of assistance, if any, depends on a household's variables.

"Most people are way under ($16,245)," Keller said.

The most important variable, of course, is that you must be a member of the Baldwin-Whitehall community to use the Whitehall Church of Christ's food bank. Keller said that any qualified low-income Baldwin Township, Baldwin Borough or Whitehall Borough resident can use the church's food bank as long as his or her household's zip code is 15236 or 15227.

You must call ahead to schedule an appointment. Many residents that take advantage of the food bank simply make their next month's appointment at the time that they visit during the prior month.

Baldwin Township residents with 15226 zip codes do not qualify for the Whitehall Church of Christ's food bank, and neither do Brentwood Borough residents with 15227 zip codes. However, low-income residents from those areas could still find other food banks to serve them.

Keller said that she makes an exception for otherwise non-eligible residents to use her church's food bank if they are low-income members of the church.

Keller and Dillinger said that most of the residents that use their church's food bank reside in the complex in or the complex in .

Aside from talking with Keller and Dillinger, I did do some actual volunteering for the food bank.

I spoke with Keller earlier in the week, and she told me that the men who unload the food from the van that arrives at about 10:15 on Friday mornings are always looking for someone to make the unloading job easier.

I grabbed a shopping cart and loaded it with several boxes each time that I went to the van to get more food to wheel back to Fellowship Hall. I made about six trips before everything was unloaded and then went to work on sorting out some of the goods.

While much of the food that arrives from the Pittsburgh Food Bank's Duquesne headquarters is already sorted, many other goods that are collected by Boy Scouts troops and other organizations are not.

Keller's team sets up boxes labeled "soup," "corn," "green beans," "tomatoes," "beans," et al., and gets to sorting. More than once, I had to think about which box to place tomato soup into: tomatoes or soup?! I guessed right; the answer was soup.

The church's food bank definitely gets its share of visitors. In March alone, the bank served 175 total individuals, including 81 households.

Saphrona Zees and Brian Browder, who both live in in Baldwin Borough, used the bank during my time there.

Zees and Browder have been going to the church's food bank for approximately two years and had glowing words to describe its importance in their lives.

Browder hit the nail right on the head.

"I get $19 a month in food stamps," Browder said. "I'd be going hungry if it wasn't for this place, or I'd be existing on nothing but pasta."

Zees and Browder are not members of the Whitehall Church of Christ, but they said that Dillinger comes to Baldwin Towers every Wednesday for Bible study.

Dillinger said that efforts like that and the food bank are just ways to be more "Christ-like." He also said that the church's motivation for hosting a food-bank chapter is a very simple one.

"People have to be able to get food," he said. "We serve an area that has, around our building, close to us, lower-income people, and they need a place that they can go to.

"They can't always get to one of the other three (food banks) around here. (Those banks) don't always service our area, so it would be more difficult if we didn't exist.

"As far as a church's motivation, one of the things that we're trying to do is let people see that we care about them as an individual and that they're important to us whether they come to this church or not.

"Whether or not they decide to come here after (using the food bank), that's totally up to them. In fact, there are very, very few who do, but the motivation isn't about building up us as a church as much as it is trying to be Christ-like.

"Just help those who need some help; that's really what it's about."

To learn how to use the food bank or how to volunteer there, call 412-884-2055.