A Lifeline to Families in Time of Need

As the Montauk School secretary in the 1980s, Fran Ecker noticed that some students lacked a proper lunch. With two other women, Ines Fox and Shelley Engstrom, she decided to help families in need of extra food and established the Montauk Community Food Pantry in 1984.

It is among seven programs in every hamlet from Bridgehampton to Montauk, each providing food to hundreds of local residents.

Ms. Ecker, who still holds the post of secretary with the food pantry volunteer group, raised the money initially needed for the pantry by selling chances on afghan blankets she hand-knit herself. “She is really a very inspirational woman,” said Alice Houseknecht, who has volunteered for over a dozen years and more recently stepped up to oversee the food pantry and its group of about 30 “wonderful volunteers.”

It is still thriving, distributing food to Montauk residents monthly from November through April on the third Tuesday of the month from 6 to 7:30 p.m.

It was housed at first at the Montauk Community Church, but now St. Therese of Lisieux Catholic Church provides space in its parish center on South Essex Street.

For those who cannot come to the church for pickup, Ms. Houseknecht will deliver. And, she said, “emergency food is always available.”

Approximately 345 people a month come in and receive five bags of nonperishable groceries, plus some frozen goods, enough for about seven meals per person. Preregistration is not required, but proof of residency is.

The Montauk group also steps in to help with other needs. “Every so often I’ll get a call from a family that’s just come into town,” and is staying with a relative or a friend, Ms. Houseknecht said. “In those situations we have been sort of a lifeline for them.” Volunteers will meet the family at the food pantry and give them not only things to eat but also clothing, contributions to help cover necessities like rent, or help with transportation.

Like other local food pantries, Montauk receives some food items from Long Island Cares, a regional distributor whose mission is to address hunger across Long Island, and also gets what is collected by local organizations through food drives.

But about 90 percent of the items given out in Montauk are purchased by the food pantry, which gets support from “everyone,” Ms. Houseknecht said, from individual contributors, to civic groups, to businesses, and volunteers. While the pantry is independent from the church, St. Therese parishioners offer help to pantry clients, collecting Christmas gifts, for instance. The children in religious education classes have made birthday celebration kits to be given out to pantry clients: empty cake boxes filled with cake mix and frosting, birthday candles, handmade cards, and small gifts.

Recently, through the work of another helpful volunteer, a pantry website went live at montaukfoodpantry.org.

An emphasis on good nutrition at the Springs Food Pantry includes a visit from a bilingual nutritionist once a month, and the distribution of fresh produce, milk, and eggs.

The pantry was established in 1994 as a mission of the Springs Presbyterian Church, where it is housed. It is open on Wednesdays from 4 to 6 p.m., year round — and has been open, without interruption, for every week of the year for 22 years now, said Pamela Bicket, a volunteer board member.

The “recipients,” as Ms. Bicket calls some 95 families that visit to pick up food, are about 75 percent Latino, “the vast majority from Ecuador.”

 Of the others, she said, a number are longtime locals, often with families that go back generations in Springs. All residents in need within the Springs School District are eligible.

At the pantry, they fill up their own bags with enough groceries for three or four family meals. In December, 1,156 people were served.

The pantry sent out a survey several years ago to determine the recipients’ food preferences. “We were offering traditional American foods for lunch,” such as macaroni and cheese or chicken noodle soup, Ms. Bicket said. Instead, they learned that beans, dried or canned, were considered a staple — pinto beans or kidney beans in particular — and that hot oatmeal was popular with Latino families, even in the summer. Canned soup was not favored.

Marta Blanco, who visits regularly from the Cornell Cooperative Extension Service to discuss healthy eating, has been working with families on “improving nutrition and making better choices.” More families are choosing brown rice, for instance, over white, and will take home the venison donated to the pantry by hunters, Ms. Bicket said.

The food pantry spends between $55,000 and $60,000 a year, Ms. Bicket said, and gets “a good bit of support from our local businesses.” It is able to purchase food at low cost from Long Island Cares and also receives contributions through other distribution programs.

The East Hampton Food Pantry distributes food at two sites: from a temporary home base at the Hampton Country Day Camp on Buckskill Road in East Hampton, after losing its longtime home at the Windmill Village apartment complex, on Tuesdays from 1 to 6 p.m., and, in winter, at the St. Michael’s senior citizens housing complex in Amagansett. The satellite opened last week, and its hours are from 4 to 6 p.m., also on Tuesday.

Those who request assistance are asked to fill out a registration form, in person or online, and must provide proof that they live in the Town of East Hampton. As at other pantries, there is no income check or other proof required.

Vicki Littman, the chairwoman of the East Hampton Food Pantry, said that the number of people who need food always increases between November and May, when work here can be scarce. In December, approximately 260 families a week visited the food pantry she oversees. A bag of groceries, depending on the size of the family, will provide meals for two or three days, and includes produce, fruit, milk, and eggs. “When we can afford it, we give them meat,” Ms. Littman said.

The cost of food is about $3,000 a week during the winter. The number of visitors drops during summer months, but still, 100 families a week seek assistance.

“There really is a hidden face here,” Ms. Littman said. “It’s hard to live in such an expensive community.” Those in need include senior citizens on fixed incomes, and the underemployed. With enough food in hand for a few days, people can use their money to pay a bill instead, Ms. Littman said.

Sag Harborites in need can receive food for at least nine meals each week at the Old Whalers Church on Tuesdays from 10:30 a.m. to noon. The Sag Harbor Food Pantry, founded in 1987 and open year round, serves about 100 families weekly, Evelyn Ramunno, its director, said. An annual appeal and other fund-raisers help bring in the money to pay the weekly bill for groceries, about $1,200, she said.

Ms. Ramunno said she will continue volunteering “as long as the need is there.” There are many longtime helpers, and “it’s a social thing as well as hard work.” The volunteer pool includes a couple of people who came in when they needed food but now, doing better, “they began helping because they wanted to pay back a bit,” Ms. Ramunno said.

As in Springs, the Bridgehampton Food Pantry offers “client choice” of foods to pack for home all year long, “because of the ethnic diversity of our clientele,” which includes both migrant workers and Latino families, said Tom White, the director. The pantry operates out of the Bridgehampton Community House on Wednesdays from 11:30 a.m. to 1 p.m. There are a few homeless people who rely on the pantry for food. “We do have some people living out in the woods,” he said.

The food pantry volunteers deliver a number of food bags to the senior citizens nutrition center in Bridgehampton, where individuals pick them up.

Mr. White, whose late mother, Elizabeth White, founded the food pantry in the late 1970s along with Gloria Harris, another Bridgehampton resident, said he is reaching out to local community gardens and farm stands to solicit donations of more fresh food, and that he hopes to be able to add evening hours to the schedule.

Serving residents of the Bridgehampton and Sagaponack area, the Bridgehampton pantry usually sees 38 to 50 clients a week in winter; just before Christmas, 87 people came in for food, Mr. White said.

For residents of Wainscott, there is a food pantry at the Living Water Full Gospel Church that is open two days a week: Wednesdays from 6:30 to 7:30 p.m., and Fridays from 10 a.m. to noon.