NNEMAP Food Pantry combats food insecurity with innovative solutions

COLUMBUS, Ohio (WCMH) — September is recognized as Hunger Action Month, an opportunity to bring awareness to the food insecurity issues in our community.

Thankfully, the Mid-Ohio Food Collective and its many partners are combatting the problem, helping serve thousands of families across 20 counties. One central Ohio food pantry is doing amazing work in innovative ways.

On a Tuesday morning in Columbus, the NNEMAP Food Pantry on 11th Avenue was in its usual flurry of activity, serving its community with compassion and care as it has been since 1969.

“And then in the mid-’80s, we became part of the Mid-Ohio Food Bank at the time,” said Roy Clark, NNEMAP Food Pantry Executive Director. “And so, we’ve been distributing major amounts of food throughout the community for years. In fact, last year we distributed 1.8 million pounds of food and about three-fourths of that comes from that Mid-Ohio Food Collective.”

Clark said this year alone, the pantry will see nearly 60 thousand visits, almost triple the number from 2021, when the country was in the throes of the pandemic.

“With COVID, we changed everything,” said Jim Hamberg NNEMAP Food Pantry Director of Operations. “So, it was just staff and volunteers inside. And then we got too busy to let folks come back inside. So, we did a pre-bag model, grab and go kind of thing and our families are in and out within maybe five, 10 minutes at the most.”

Like other food pantries, the pandemic pivot led to new opportunities. That includes home delivery services to homebound clients via DoorDash or their van as well as refrigerated pick-up lockers outside the pantry.

“They can request a locker gets fulfilled, they get a PIN number just like an Amazon locker, and they can get their food,” said Hamberg. “So after hours, there’s also the whole dignity piece of, you know some people do not like to come to a pantry. They don’t want to ask for help. And we try to get over that partially through deliveries and pass through our locker program as well.”

This ability to serve the needs of the community in multiple ways is what makes NNEMAP so special and necessary, as food insecurity continues to be a growing problem both locally and nationwide.

“And during this time of Hunger Action Month with the Mid-Ohio Food Collective, it’s great to be able to spotlight all this work they’re doing,” said Kerry McCarthy MOFC Director of Programs and Agency Partnerships. “Deliveries, lockers, pantry. I mean, they’re really scouting and are trendsetting in terms of customer needs.”

“What we do is not cheap,” said Clark. “There’s a cost to do everything that we do. When we were putting sometimes 40 deliveries and 12 lockers at any given morning, it takes manpower to do that. So yeah, help us if you can. And all of us, all of the pantries throughout Central Ohio are working very hard to meet the need.”

NNEMAP is one of the few food pantries open six days a week. For more information about how to get involved visit the NNEMAP website.

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