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The
food pantry was
started in 1980 by The Church and Society Group and The Grove City
Ministerial Association as an effort to help the shut ins of the
community. Grace Hartman initiated this task and
essentially founded
the food pantry. After working with
the shut ins, Grace realized that there were many people in Grove City
in addition to the shut ins, who were struggling with hunger and had
difficulty paying their utility bills. Grace became
curious as to how
many people in the community were struggling with hunger. She went to
the welfare office to determine exactly how many people were enrolled
in the welfare program. She was absolutely astounded
with the amount of
families in the community who were enrolled. This
gave her the
inspiration to do something about it.
Grace,
along with a couple volunteers, began
collecting food and storing it in a closet of Grace United Methodist
Church. After a couple of weeks of collecting, the
closet was
completely filled with food. Grace and the volunteers opened the doors
to the public. The pantry gave out a 3 day supply of
food (the welfare
office works on a 28 day calendar—so the recipients had food for an
entire month). Food was (and still is) provided to
anyone who
demonstrated a need.
It is through the
efforts of Grace and
several
compassionate and dedicated volunteers that Grace Food Pantry was born.
The volunteers and clients chose to name the pantry after it’s founder;
Grace Hartman. Although housed in Grace United
Methodist Church, the
pantry is not solely run or funded by the church. To
help the
community understand that the pantry is an entity organized and funded
by all of the individuals, businesses, and churches in the area, the
pantry was renamed in 2008 to Grove City Community Food
Pantry.
In 2005 the pantry
had about 95
families enrolled. We now have over 750 families
enrolled, which is approximately 1,600
individuals. As one can see, our numbers have grown
drastically, and
continue to grow on a monthly basis. It is through
the help of The
United Way, local businesses, churches, and individuals that the Grove
City Community Food Pantry is able to continue to serve the less
fortunate of our community.
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