EAST LONGMEADOW – Hunger doesn’t take a vacation, and certainly doesn’t stop once spring arrives. East Longmeadow Pleasant View Senior Center Executive Director Carolyn Brennan wants residents to know that people have the same challenges during the summer months as they do in the winter.

April and August are the most challenging months for the East Longmeadow Food Pantry, located in the Pleasant View Senior Center at 328 North Main St., for donated goods, Brennan explained to Reminder Publishing. Currently, the food pantry is in need of the following items: canned vegetables and fruit, salsa, cereal, canned meals such as ravioli, tuna, peanut butter, tomato sauce, and pasta. Residents interested in donating foods that are not expired can drop off their donations to the Senior Center on the shelf located in the entryway of the center.

In addition to the stationary food pantry, East Longmeadow received grant funding in February 2018 for a mobile food pantry. The grant was for $70,000 and pays for the vans entirety. The van has been purchased and is in the Center’s parking lot waiting for pricing for decals so that residents will know what the van is.

Brennan explained that the mobile food pantry is still “getting off the ground” and that they are currently in the process of filling the mobile food pantry coordinator position. This will be a 20-hour a week position. Additionally, there will be a driver for the van who will have “just a few hours a week.”

“We have a vision of how we’re going to do it [run the mobile food pantry,]” but we want the coordinator be involved in setting that vision,” Brennan explained. “Because the pantry here has grown in the last 10 years we’ve always been concerned about those who can’t leave their house.”

Each month, Brennan said the East Longmeadow Food Pantry serves 70 local families. In busy times, she said, it can be more than that.

“People think East Longmeadow doesn’t have any physically challenged residents – having lay offs, though we don’t see that much anymore in todays economy – whether they had to leave a job, or had an illness, it is a very busy pantry,” Brennan said.

Brennan hopes that the mobile food pantry will be up and running in September. In the early stages, she believes they will be helping homebound seniors because typically, the senior center is aware of them, whereas they don’t often know of homebound people of younger generations.

There will be a registration process through the Pleasant View Senior Center where homebound individuals who fall within the income guidelines will be able to apply. For more information on the mobile food pantry, call the Pleasant View Senior Center at 525–5436.