WILKINSBURG COMMUNITY MINISTRY

We Share Food. It's that simple! We share food our neighbors want to eat and they have a choice over what they take. Don't want carrots? Don't take carrots. Can't eat oranges? No oranges. We don't pack boxes, and we help people select what suits them.
Many of our neighbors do not have a vehicle; many more have mobility issues aside from actual transportation. Pittsburgh is historically known to have a rough topography. Steep hills and a lack of a grid system can increase the difficulty for individuals and families to access necessary services. Additionally, in underserved communities, infrastructure like sidewalks and curb cuts are not always properly taken care of, leaving sidewalks rough and rutted. These circumstances can make it very difficult for folks to push a walker or stroller, or to keep track of a toddler while carrying 25-30 pounds of food.

To truly address hunger and nutrition security requires innovative collaboration between private, public, and nonprofit sectors to ensure the availability and awareness of interventions and wrap-around services to support low-income families. Toward this end, with the support of the Greater Pittsburgh Community Food Bank (GPCFB), in 2022 we started a mobile service in which we take a 26-foot truck equipped with refrigerator/freezer to different locations in our service area (and one outside it in Sharpsburg) to distribute food to people with transportation challenges. These neighborhoods were specifically chosen and aim to reach people with no transportation. These sites operate in the late afternoon and evening so that working families can get there.

At our store front pantry, we serve almost 4500 families a month. Of those, 40% have children in the household; 45% have a person over 62; 20% have a veteran; 60% have at least person on disability; and over half of them have someone in the household who works!