St Anne's Pantry September Update

​2020 has been a year of significant changes for the St Anne's Pantry Food Bank. These changes can be summarised thus:

• Sofia and Margaret Alve took over as Pantry facilitators following the long service of Diane and Bob Stuart and Val Grace in these roles.
• The Pantry was relocated to a more modern and fit for purpose location.
• Covid-19 came along in March and things got busy.  We partnered with Civil Defence's Porirua Emergency Operations Centre. During April we delivered 155 food parcels and in May 136 more as we moved through pandemic levels 3 - 4 - 3 - 2. Activity has lessened a little during June - August but we continue to operate at more than twice the level we were at in February 2020. See the pie graph in this post.
• We have gone online. Initially via a web page on the Porirua Anglican website and now on an independent website www.stannespantry.nz 
• We continue to work closely with Porirua Citizens' Advice Bureau who provide referrals - currently about 60% of the requests we receive. We also have a request form on the Porirua Anglican website and now this website. Occasionally we receive phone requests.
• The Kiwi Community Assistance (KCA) food rescue service, operating out of a new warehouse, continues to provide the bulk of our food supply. As St Anne's Pantry food distribution has grown this year, so too has the amount of food we source through KCA. We continue to be most grateful that they support our food charity.
• Funding has substantially increased. Individual donors, mainly living in the northern suburbs of Porirua, have dug deep to fund our increased level of activity. With the pandemic government and local authority funding has been significant.
• In addition to our pre 2020 food donors - New World Porirua and Mana plus local Presbyterian and Anglican Churches - St Anne's Pantry has found support from Porirua Rotary, Girl Guides, St Teresa School, Karori and shortly we will benefit from a food drive at Pauatahanui School.
• In addition to the two Facilitators and the Porirua Anglican Priest, ten other volunteers help run the Pantry operation by purchasing food, stacking shelves, packing food parcels, delivering food parcels, volunteer management, administration and promotion.
• We have moved from being a three delivery days to a five days a week operation; and during pandemic levels three and four we delivered food parcels every day.

Our motto "Addressing Food Insecurity in Porirua" inspires us constantly keep in mind the families we are here to serve by delivering food parcels to them. This is our core business and we unashamedly seek to bless in the name of Christ the 450+ families and households we have delivered a food parcel to during 2020, and those we have not yet delivered to.

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Pantry July-August 2020 Update