Pathway Helping Families in Need with Food Pantry

When Pathway School of Discovery families came to Principal Cathy Miller expressing their need for food, she would always do her best to assist them but envisioned a food pantry at the school as the ideal way to help. With the help of Communities In Schools Site Coordinator Antoine Dorsey, Achievement and Behavior Specialist Tiffanie Matthews, and local partners, Miller’s vision turned into reality.

“Anything we can do to help our families have a better life and feel safer, we are on board for that,” Miller said.

Thanks to wellness grant funding, Pathway is providing 30 families in need with boxes of food and hygiene products twice per month. Each box is tailored to a family of four and contains ingredients for three dinners, three breakfasts, lunch items, snack foods, laundry detergent, shampoo, toothbrushes, toothpaste, and more.

“We also have a miscellaneous table with donations that families can take,” Dorsey said. “It has breakfast bars, macaroni cups, salt and pepper, condiments, things that don’t come in a box but if it’s something they need, they can take it.”

The pantry is available to Pathway families for free and they can pick up items during a designated time slot. Outside of the twice-per-month pickups, the school is prepared to help families going through a tragedy or a particularly rough stretch with emergency boxes. Miller said the school has three emergency boxes of food filled with non-perishable items.

Dorsey said that food available at pantries can sometimes be expired or they don’t have ingredients that go together, so providing fun and useful items was a priority. Pathway also filled its boxes with hygiene products tailored to students’ needs.

“If you go to other pantries, the hygiene products are mostly for one group of people,” Matthews said. “The combs aren’t going to work for everybody. The shampoo and conditioner aren’t going to work for everybody. We made sure our boxes had shampoo and conditioner for everyone.”

Community partners found out about Pathway’s food pantry and were eager to get involved. Panera Bread is donating desserts and Schwebel’s Bakery Outlet is donating bread products, while the local Kroger is also partnering with the school.

The launch of the food pantry this spring proved a success, as families were delighted at the opportunity. Some were in disbelief asking: “Are you sure this is for my household?” The day brought feelings of relief and for some, even tears of joy.

“You could tell a lot of people were grateful in their demeanor, their faces, even their words,” Matthews said. “They were just so grateful for everything.”