Behind St. Cecilia’s church in Englewood, New Jersey lies an inconspicuous cement block building that does the Lord’s work. The Office of Concern provides shopping bags of food for 700 people every week.

After he retired from college teaching, my dad began volunteering there a few hours a week and now helps run the place. He unloads trucks, picks up turkeys at Thanksgiving, and writes grants. He gave me a tour this morning and introduced me to the other volunteers. I took a few pictures as background research for an article about food and poverty.  While there was a great deal of joking around between the volunteers, there was also a undercurrect of seriousness. Everybody understood the importance of their work.

On this frigid morning, a small crew of 70-year old men unloaded boxes of green beans and dried noodles from a food truck from The Community Bank in Newark. My dad showed me the routine for filing the bags. He said they set up an assembly line — filling 700 bags is no small task.

He explained that the number of food recipients has drastically increased in the past three years. They used to serve about 300 people a week. Now, the demand has more than doubled. These bags of ramen and cereal are meant to supplement other food programs that they receive from the government. Food stamps and WIC are not enough.

Between the money that my dad scraped together with his grants and donations from the local churches, they have a $200,000 budget. They also receive about $300,000 in food donations from local bakeries and businesses. Unilever headquarters are in town; they provide toilet paper and body wash and diapers.

But it’s not enough. The demand is too high. They have had to cut down the amount of food in the bags in the past year. The half  million in cash and product donations does not cover the needs in this small city in New Jersey. On this sub-zero day, there was a line of people, a few with small children, walking to the food pantry with their wire carts.

To donate or volunteer, please refer to their website or contact them.