Food Pantry Needs Help with Donations During the Summer

Kids still love mac and cheese and PB&J.

So those items move quickly off the shelves of a building in north Woburn, especially in the summer, when there's no school lunch.

With schools on hiatus and some families away on vacation or focused on summer, those shelves don’t get refilled as quickly.

So the Food Pantry operated through the Council of Social Concern is asking for help to keep its shelves stocked this summer.

“Hunger doesn’t take a vacation,” Karen Colatrella, Food Pantry director, said.

Some 80 to 85 percent of the pantry’s stock comes from community donations, while schools and churches hold regular food drives for the pantry, Colatrella said. Businesses also help supply the pantry, she said. At the holidays, the pantry sees “an outpouring of generosity.”

The pantry also received foodstuffs from the national postal food drive in May, Colatrella said, and the local postal food drive in the fall.

Those drives bring in “a mountain of food,” she said.

But that food supply is getting low now.

The pantry particularly needs macaroni and cheese, peanut butter and jelly and juice—“We always need that,” Colatrella said, referring to juice, and spaghetti sauce and snacks, such as crackers and cookies.

For the first time, the pantry will receive some fresh-grown produce this summer from two parcels in the city’s community gardens, Colatrella said. 

“Many of our clients can’t afford to eat healthy,” Colatrella said. The pantry doesn’t have room to take regular donations of fresh produce, she said.

According to Colatrella, the pantry serves about 270 households a month. And at the height of the recession, that number rose to more than 300. Some of those people have an ongoing need, others need temporary help, she said.

“Hunger runs the gamut,” she said. “People who come here need to be here.”

Some food pantry shelves hold low-sodium, low-fat and no-sugar products. Those shelves could use more stock, according to the pantry director.

The pantry even offers recipes “on how to use food we typically have here,” Colatrella said. is working with the pantry on recipes and nutrition information.

The food pantry accepts non-perishable food items within their “sell by” dates at 2 Merrimac St. weekdays between 9 a.m. and 5 p.m. The pantry also accepts checks made out to the Council of Social Concern Food Pantry.

Among the other items on the pantry’s wish list are cereal, both hot and cold; dessert mixes; rice and rice mixes; instant mashed potatoes; powdered milk; soup; tuna and canned items:  fruit and vegetables; lunch products and meat; and condiments.

Started in the 1980’s, the pantry serves residents of Woburn and Winchester, Colatrella said, as “a place where people could come with dignity.”

Some people see coming to the food pantry as a negative, Colatrella.

“We don’t see it that way," she said. "Everybody needs help at some time.”