SOUTH HADLEY – Every year, the Breen family creates a magical display of Christmas lights on West Summit Street. When people drive by to see their lights, they make donations, which the family then takes to Neighbors Helping Neighbors.

Neighbors Helping Neighbors Director of Operations Mary Lou Guarnera told Reminder Publishing the Breen family has been bringing donations to the pantry for five years. According to Guarnera, the family moved to South Hadley a number of years ago.

The Breen family used to do this in communities they lived in prior, she said. People who attended the display offered donations to the family, and the Breens wanted to do something more noble with the money, they decided to donate it to Neighbors Helping Neighbors. Guarnera said the family wants to make sure that people understand this is the money that’s been donated by other people – it isn’t their donation.

The pantry buys more food with those donations, and with their increasing customer base, Guarnera said they really appreciate the money and posted on the Neighbors Helping Neighbors Facebook page a thank you to those who donated.

“We try to go beyond your basic tuna fish and spaghetti,” Guarnera replied. “We have dairy and produce. At Christmas we had turkeys, hams and roasts. We do a bit lot of purchasing in stores. That money is extremely helpful – plus the Food Bank of Western Massachusetts, which we belong to, also has some food that is listed as buy in so we’re able to purchase it with money, but the vast majority of the food is free.”

Neighbors Helping Neighbors is a client-choice food pantry serving people in South Hadley and Granby. When the pandemic hit, the pantry began serving their customers outside in their cars. At this point, Guarnera said it is a no-touch service. They give customers their menus and fill out what they want. The menu goes into the pantry and it’s filled. Then volunteers load the goods into their vehicles so they don’t have to get out or get close to any other person at all.

Guarnera said they let people come whenever they need to and don’t limit how often they may use the pantry, nor do they limit the amount of food customers may take, except for items there is a limited amount of.

Neighbors Helping Neighbors is now doing a mobile food pantry where they go to at the Granby Senior Center and the South Hadley Senior Center on the third Tuesday of the month giving them produce, dairy and frozen meat. One does not have to be a senior to use the mobile pantry; they are open to everybody. They’ve also signed up with Door Dash through the Food Bank of Western Massachusetts to deliver food to residents.

Guarnera said they’re hoping to increase their mobile food pantries in 2022 in order to have a second one in Granby and South Hadley. “It’s been hard for everyone, and the use of the pantry has gone up and down,” Guarnera responded. “When all of the pandemic benefits were being given out, the use of the pantry decreased somewhat. Right now, those benefits are still not in place and the cost of food is skyrocketing.”

She continued, “The cost of gas to get to the store to buy the food is very high. Now it’s winter and people have had to turn on their heat so there’s that added expense. That has brought many more people to us and people who were using us previously have come back.

We’re seeing a lot of new people and we’re just glad we’re able to be there for people.”

Neighbors Helping Neighbors is located at 30 Carew St., and is open on Wednesdays from 12:30 p.m. to 5:30 p.m. and Saturdays from 10 a.m. to 12 p.m. Community members who may be interested in donating can send a check to 30 Carew St. or through Square or Facebook. For those looking to drop off food, they can do so on Wednesday or Saturday from 9 a.m. to 12 p.m. at 30 Carew St. in the United Methodist Church. For more information, visit their website at https://www.nhnfoodpantry.org/.