The economic and social toll of the COVID-19 pandemic is nowhere more evident than in local food supplies that help feed needy Riverhead families.
The Open Arms Care Center, which has operated a pantry for the First Baptist Church of Riverhead on Northville Turnpike for 20 years, has seen an “exponential surge” in demand since the COVID outbreak, said Zona Stroy, chairwoman of the program for the past 15 Years.
The number of households served by Open Arms increased from 968 in 2019 to 3,109 in 2020.
“I thought it was going to level off somehow,” Stroy said in an interview last week. Instead, the numbers keep rising. As of September 4, 2021, Open Arms had served 4,000 households, she said.
“The demand is just outrageous,” said Stroy. “We’re only open two hours a day, two days a week,” she noted.
“There are a lot of first-time visitors,” said Stroy. “I do the numbers every month. Each person who gets food fills out a sheet – this is required by the government and the food banks, “she said.
Volunteers pack grocery bags and place them on tables in front of the church to distribute to the residents of the pantry. Photo: Denise Civiletti
In 2020, in response to COVID, Open Arms became a drive-up distribution location that no longer allowed customers to enter the building to select items from the pantry shelves.
The drive-up distribution takes place on Wednesdays and Thursdays from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. During operating hours, the parking lot in front of the church is very busy, about half a dozen volunteers bring bags of canned goods from the pantry to the outside storage room in the church and add fresh produce and perishable items to the sacks of pallets lined up along the sidewalk , and then deliver the grocery bags to the people in the waiting vehicles.
“We saw 40 to 50 cars every day,” said Stroy. And even that number continues to rise. In the past few weeks, the pantry had nearly 80 cars in a day.
The number of those in need is both astounding and frightening, said Stroy. “I don’t know what it is, but I don’t think it’s an easy answer,” she said.
“There are a lot of people out of work,” said Stroy. People have been laid off or stopped working for fear of the virus, she said. “There are also many people who have COVID and have not fully recovered,” she said.
Stroy, a real estate agent who works in South Fork, said she saw both ends of the economic spectrum. “I see a lot of people who have a lot of money to buy houses in the Hamptons. And then I see a lot of people [coming to the pantry] who have nothing to eat, ”she said.
“I think the middle class is no longer a middle class,” said Stroy. “It takes a lot of support and that is not visible to most people.”
According to Long Island Cares, a food bank that supplies the Open Arms Care Center, more than 2.4 million New Yorkers are “food insecure” – one in four adults on Long Island, where some 259,000 people, including 79,000 children, don’t have enough to eat. More than 40% of the food insecure in Suffolk County are not eligible for nutrition programs like SNAP. Almost half of the people who receive emergency food aid are, according to Long Island Cares, the “working poor”, ie households with at least one working adult.
“We will continue to meet the demand,” said Stroy.
Open Arms is a volunteer-only organization that is supported by donations and state community development block grants that are distributed annually across the city of Riverhead. Food banks like Long Island Cares supply most of the groceries the pantry distributes to those in need.
Open Arms Care Center chairwoman Zona Stroy at the pantry demonstration last week. Photo: Denise Civiletti
Volunteers fill paper bags and boxes with groceries and household items and distribute them to the people who pull up to the church pantry door. In the morning[In coronavirus crisis, food pantries face increased demand with depleted resources – RiverheadLOCAL]s When the pantry is open, vehicles will line up at one of the church parking lot entrances that extends onto Northville Turnpike.
The Open Arms’ most pressing need right now is for volunteers, Stroy said.
“We need people who can give a few lessons,” said Stroy. It doesn’t have to be a huge investment of time every week. The hours can be different every week.
“If you have an hour or two a week to spare, there is likely a way to help a pantry like Open Arms,” Stroy said.
“We need people who can lift 25 or 30 pounds, people who can put cans in a bag and move a 10-pound bag from this shelf to this shelf,” she said.
People interested in volunteering can call Open Arms at 631-727-6943.
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