Never A Better Time For ‘Helping Neighbors’ - Chronicle Launches Holiday Campaign For The Family Pantry

HARWICH – At the Family Pantry of Cape Cod, nobody leaves without food. Volunteers make absolutely sure of that.

 Shortly after he started work in May, Executive Director Paul Lonergan was learning the ropes, helping to sign up new clients at the pantry’s service window. Occasionally there can be a language barrier, which makes the process tricky.

 “You ask them if they want this in Spanish or Portuguese or English, and they fill out their shopping list,” he said. “And a gentleman came to the window who was deaf, and the person he was with spoke a dialect of Creole. We have got a couple of people on our intake team that speak a lot of languages, and this was a challenge,” he said.

 The simplest course would have been to provide the man with a box of nonperishable USDA food, generally reserved for people who cannot meet the very basic documentation needs that the Pantry requires. But the Family Pantry prides itself on allowing clients to choose the nutritious foods that they want: food that the family will eat, made from groceries and fresh produce that are culturally familiar to people. Lonergan went on to help the growing line of other clients while volunteers focused on this case.

 “About an hour and a half later, I see him going by with a carriage of groceries,” Lonergan said. “I got a little teary-eyed.” He asked volunteers how they had managed to communicate with the man. “They used pictures of a house and zoomed in on a house number, zoomed out to a street sign, and got his address.” Using cell phones and computers, they showed the man the items available on the shopping list and managed to fill a complete grocery order. The man was even able to grab some gently-used clothing from the Pantry’s boutique.

 “That’s probably the most moved I’ve been in 25 years,” Lonergan said. “That tells the story. It’s all about getting the clients fed. Nobody leaves without food, and we really want you to leave with the good stuff.” While it’s easy to focus on the staggering number of people who rely on the Family Pantry, volunteers remain focused on each individual who comes for help.

 Right now, the Family Pantry is entering its busiest time of year, having just provided hundreds of clients with all the ingredients for a full Thanksgiving meal, from frozen turkeys, peas, carrots, onions, potatoes and stuffing right down to pies and bread. That’s on top of the many hundreds of regular grocery orders that the organization fills each week. Pretty soon, the Pantry will be doing its annual holiday toy distribution, just in time for Hanukkah and Christmas.

 All of this happens at a time when thousands of local families have found themselves turning to food pantries for the first time ever, thanks to a host of factors including the government shutdown, the interruption in SNAP benefits, the discontinuation of health insurance subsidies and the still-soaring cost of living on Cape Cod.

 As it’s done for the last 21 years, The Cape Cod Chronicle is launching its Helping Neighbors campaign for the Family Pantry of Cape Cod. In the few weeks between now and New Year’s Eve, we hope to raise a record $130,000, all to help feed and clothe people in need. Every donation up to the goal will be matched, dollar-for dollar, thanks to Karen Campbell and a host of anonymous donors who support Helping Neighbors every year.

 “That $130,000 goal is the largest one ever since we first launched the campaign in 2004,” Chronicle Editor Tim Wood said. “But the need is also greater than we’ve ever seen before.”

 The challenge is that this year’s campaign needs to wrap up in only about six weeks, thanks to the condensed holiday season.

 “That means we need folks to make their contributions right away,” Wood said. “We need to make sure the Family Pantry is on a firm footing to start 2026. Who knows what challenges the new year might bring?” he said.

 Some Pantry clients visit the headquarters in North Harwich to pick up groceries, but they can also receive clothing for themselves and their families, as well as referrals to other local social service agencies that help with everything from housing and healthcare to transportation and heating assistance. Others get help through the Pantry’s mobile operation, Healthy Meals in Motion, which delivers groceries to people who can’t reach the Pantry, often through local councils on aging. There’s even a satellite pantry at Cape Cod Community College.

And much of the revenue used to buy all that food comes from Second Glance Thrift Boutique in West Harwich, an upscale thrift store that features only the very best items donated to the Pantry, from new and practically-new clothes to furniture and housewares.

Each week during Helping Neighbors, we’ll be telling the story of the Family Pantry, the volunteers who keep things running, and the local folks who rely on it to keep food on the table every week. We’ll also be publishing a list of contributors to the campaign.

To contribute to The Chronicle's Helping Neighbors campaign, click here. You can also mail a tax-deductible contribution to The Family Pantry, 133 Queen Anne Rd., Harwich, MA 02645, or call 508-432-6519 to donate by credit card.