Combating Food Insecurity
Located in Jersey City’s historic downtown area, Saint Matthew’s Lutheran Church sponsors the St. Matthew’s Food Pantry, which provides the community with a variety of food, including but not limited to fruits and vegetables, canned food, grains, meat, frozen food, and dairy. The St. Matthew’s Food Pantry is staffed by an average of 15 community volunteers weekly to help address Jersey City food insecurity. The volunteers span a wide age range and come from various economic, educational, and racial backgrounds, which contributes to cross-cultural empathy and cooperation. Volunteers distribute food that is collected via food drives and donations on the front steps of Saint Matthew’s Lutheran Church in small crates and let residents choose what they need.
HealthierJC + Saint Matthew’s Lutheran Church
Saint Matthew’s Lutheran Church believes that Building a Culture of Health means providing nutritional food to everyone in the community who needs it. Equitable access to healthy food improves basic health outcomes for the entire family unit and, in turn, the entire Jersey City community. The impact is particularly significant for young people, where proper nutrition also increases their capacity to concentrate and positively interact in school, improving educational, career, and life outcomes.
St. Matthew’s Food Pantry has collaborated with HealthierJC in several areas, like publicity and connecting with community partners, to expand the range of services the pantry can provide. When the pantry was considering a back-to-school drive, HealthierJC helped identify local sources of donated school supplies, apparel and swag. And at a HealthierJC event, St. Matthew’s Food Pantry was introduced to the Affordable Connectivity Program that provided brochures about affordable Wi-Fi for pantry recipient distribution.
How was the Mini-Grant Used?
With the 2023 HealthierJC mini-grant, St Matthew’s Food Panty improved its storage capacity with two new refrigerators to help maintain food safety standards. From April – September, the pantry distributed food every Saturday from 9 AM – 12 PM, which supported 2,727 households, equating to 11,582 people. A total of 4,196 were between ages 0-17, and 1,055 were 60+.
Based on attendee logs, the mini-grant directly supported 4,633 of this total as well as an overall increase of 2,000 patrons during this six-month period. Visitors to St. Matthew’s Food Panty included minorities, women, veterans, seniors, individuals with disabilities, low-income people, and people living with HIV in all wards.
Making a Difference…
“I get Social Security, but it’s not enough. I have ten dollars left over at the end of the month after
paying my bills, and I have no food, so the food pantry is a blessing from God.”
— Community member.
“About 500 people a week visit our food pantry,” said Pastor Menzi Nkambule in an appeal for financial support. “This will help us to continue to serve the community with free food for all those who need it.”
A food pantry volunteer said that she’s been working there for nine or ten years. “It’s a help to the community and myself,” she said. “Sometimes we serve 100 people in a single day.”
Another said, “The pantry is a great help to the community. People come to us looking for help, and we are more than happy to provide it. We enjoy working together. We’re like a family. Many of the people live here, and we know them.”
For more information, visit the website of Saint Matthew’s Lutheran Church at www.stmatthewsjc.net.