When Food Isn’t Enough: Family Pantry Partners With Other Helpers

HARWICH – When a new family shows up at the Family Pantry of Cape Cod, they’re looking for help putting food on the table. But that’s rarely the only help they need.

 Often, hunger is a symptom of larger problems that might be facing a family. If they can’t pay their heating bill, or if they have sudden unexpected medical expenses, a family might use all of their available resources to meet those urgent needs. In a case like that, even when there are children in the family, the grocery list becomes discretionary spending.

 But by far, the biggest financial stressor on Cape Codders is housing. For many working people, housing costs eat up well over one-third of their monthly income, sometimes closer to half. With wages that simply don’t keep pace with expenses, it’s easy for a family to run short of money for rent. And because housing is so incredibly scarce, nobody wants to risk missing a rent payment.

Melissa Masi, the Family Pantry’s program manager, welcomed a new client from Brewster in October and found her to be very distressed.

 “She came in and she was very teary and sad. She had lost her housing because she had lost her job; her housing was part of her compensation,” Masi explained. “She visited us for the first time and was very anxious because she didn’t have anywhere to live.”

 Masi provided the woman with a resource guide that lists, among all the local social service agencies, contacts for the Homeless Prevention Council and the Housing Assistance Corporation. The woman’s resources were understandably limited.

 “She had money for two nights in a hotel,” Masi recalled. 

 Generally, Family Pantry clients come once every 10 days to get bags of groceries, including fresh produce, meats and dairy items. In this case, the woman wasn’t assured of having a place to put those refrigerated groceries. 

 “We had given her special permission to not have to wait 10 days. We wanted to alleviate [that one stressor,]” Masi said. “If food’s the problem, that’s not a problem.” But it was 15 days later that the woman came back to the Family Pantry. 

 “She had been in her car. I did not know she was going to be in her car after those two nights,” Masi said. “She had been in her car the next 13 nights, and came in and was teary.”

 But this time, they were tears of thanks.

 “She was saying how grateful she was because one of the places in the resource guide had helped her find secure housing, and in that time frame she also got a new job. So she was very happy, and she was really appreciative,” Masi said. 

 This time, she needed food — and actually had a refrigerator to store it and a place to cook it. 

 “So we scurried around and found, from our big pile of donations, everything she needed to get her apartment started,” including pots and pans, dishes and other kitchen essentials.

 The Family Pantry’s core mission is to provide food and clothing for all in need, and each month it distributes tons of those items to clients all over Cape Cod and beyond. It’s extremely daunting for clients to take that initial step to ask for help, but when they do so at the Family Pantry, “we’ll go beyond for anyone, if we know what the circumstances are,” said Masi. 

 Often, what clients need most is a referral to one of the many other social service agencies in the region, a task that would be incredibly daunting for someone who’s never sought charitable help before. The Family Pantry is glad to connect clients to organizations that provide the exact kinds of help they need.

 “And the Cape is fantastic for networking that way,” Masi said.

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.