NCJW resuscitates emergency food-box program

By Jenn Director Knudsen

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Northwest Portland is flanked on one end by tony boutiques, high-end grocery stores, well-kept Victorian homes and eclectic restaurants. On the other are trendy eateries, chic retail outlets and sleek lofts.

In between this wealth is poverty. Poverty endured by some who shouldn’t be struggling financially: those who work.

Thanks in large part to a substantial grant from the National Council of Jewish Women to Northwest Portland Ministries, Inc., its emergency food-box program is helping feed thousands of the working poor and their families, as well as the elderly on fixed incomes.

On a recent Friday morning at the Northwest Portland Ministries’ food-box pantry in First Immanuel Lutheran Church on Northwest Irving Street, 22 elderly recipients crammed into a basement hallway. There, they awaited their free monthly grocery bags—up to 50 lbs. of food—of fresh produce, packaged sweets and bread.

Eduardo Ramon Rivera, 65, originally from Cuba, said in Spanish that he lives in nearby subsidized housing on a fixed monthly income of $637. Missing teeth and in a flannel shirt on a warm day, he said he loves the rice, beans and fresh meat and eggs the program affords him.

In this country for 13 years, Rivera indicated this genre of program is not his first. Yet, he said, “It’s better than the others.”

The emergency food-box program is not new to Northwest Portland. Previously run by the non-profit Friendly House, the cash-strapped program was to be scrapped last fall, according to Vaune Albanese, executive director.

Word of this circulated among ecumenical community leaders and volunteers; they united to find this program a new home.

Research indicated organizations were helping combat hunger among the homeless.

But the working poor were falling through the charitable cracks and suffering empty refrigerators, said Delanie Delimont, Northwest Portland Ministries’ executive director.

In 2007, the food-box program helped feed 2,500 people, short of the real number in need, said Kate Sullivan, 54, Northwest Portland Ministries’ food-box coordinator.

“The Oregon Food Bank [that provides much of the food for the program] was saying there really is a strong need,” Delimont, 51, said in a phone interview.

Albanese of Friendly House approached Delimont, offering $3,000 to Northwest Portland Ministries to help seamlessly transfer the food-box program for another year.

“We had to look for the money,” Delimont of Southwest Portland said. “Three congregations jumped up immediately and said, ‘We’ll commit to this.’”

In November, Congregation Beth Israel put up $2,000, Havurah Shalom $1,000 and Trinity Episcopal Cathedral $3,000.

And yet it takes more than $19,000 to run the emergency food-box program for one year, Delimont said. The shortfall was just over $10,000.

Eve Rosenfeld, 79, a past Northwest Portland Ministries board member, currently is on CBI’s social action committee and is an NCJW co-vice president. Aware of the faltering food-box program, she appealed to NCJW.

“It was not a hard sell to the Council board,” said Rosenfeld. “Poverty and hunger are national issues of concern to the NCJW, and we have an increased concentration of people living below the poverty line in Northwest (Portland).”

NCJW life member and CBI member Nikki Director last December became the liaison between Council and Northwest Portland Ministries.

“I was astounded” by the number of needy working people and elderly, Director said in a phone interview. “You just assume that people who work have enough at the end of the month to pay for groceries.”

Not so: A working individual residing in Northwest Portland qualifies for the emergency food-box program if earning a scant $1,574 a month, according to Delimont.

“It’s not much; I couldn’t survive on that,” she said. “Particularly now. The food prices have sky-rocketed.”

Delimont said Northwest Portland Ministries now has secured the funds to run its food-box program through March 2009. Between now and then, it will expand its outreach, feeding more people and bringing on more volunteers.

(So far, more than 100 volunteer hours have been logged by more than 30 people, she said.)

In May, Director helped coordinate food drives among the Nob Hill Business Association, including food contributions of more than 4,000 lbs. from Legacy Good Samaritan and ESCO.

The faith community also stepped up.

Carole Barkley is CBI’s liaison to Northwest Portland Ministries, on whose board she serves. She said on her congregation’s Mitzvah Day in early May, members donated $800 and more than 3,000 lbs. of food specifically to the food-box program.

Said Delimont of the successful May drives that fed more than 550 people: “It really is a community effort. That’s what I find truly amazing about this.”

And the great need remains.

The hungry flock to First Immanuel Lutheran Church every Tuesday and Friday, plus now the fourth Monday and second Wednesday of the month.

Hailing from Moldova, Russia, Ukraine, China, Cuba and beyond, they chat among themselves in their native tongues and then struggle with a “Thank you” in English when handed overstuffed bags of fresh food.

“They found a way to say ‘pie’ in every language,” Sullivan laughed at a recent bustling Friday morning distribution. “It’s a very nice community to work in,” she said of the broad-based effort.

The food-box coordinator added: “And we’re so appreciative of the kick-off we were given by the Jewish community.”