Pantry Around the Corner

Journey Covenant Church, Cuyahoga Falls, OH

Pastor Jeanette Valentine (Pastor J to most) has been the pastor at Journey Covenant for five years, but she has always considered Cuyahoga Falls to be her hometown.  After 20 years of committed service with the Salvation Army, she decided to come home. She is very connected to the community and is committed to helping them in various ways.  She knew her community was struggling with food insecurities and COVID made it that much worse. Pastor J responded by growing the existing (The Pantry Around the Corner) until her basement and many other rooms in her home became engulfed in food items – yes, her home. This is just one of the reasons Pastor J was honored by the mayor and the city of Cuyahoga Falls with a Boulevard named after her.  She just wished it could include all of the names of those working so faithfully at The Pantry Around the Corner.

Journey Covenant is an Evangelical Covenant Church with about 65 members with a typical Sunday attendance of about 35-45. Cuyahoga Falls, OH is a medium sized city with about 50,000 residents. With a church on virtually every corner you would think there would be several food pantries for the community, but The Pantry Around the Corner is one of just a few in the town, and it is the largest by far! There are dozens of volunteers that consist of congregants and community helpers. They have served thousands and thousands of meals to their community, roughly 95-100 families every week on Mondays.  Cars are backed up for blocks when the pantry starts food distribution Monday evenings (5:30pm- 7:00PM). Dozens of faithful volunteers serve those in their cars, assembly line style. It’s a huge operation for this small church, but somehow the congregation and the community­­­­ pull together and the work gets done. Many of the recipients have said that they do not know what they would have done without this substantial help.  One of the members of this little, but mighty church, Carol Sue Moore, basically runs the place and her motto is – “People are hungry, and we need to feed them.” This is very similar to what Jesus talks about in Matthew 25:35 – “I was hungry, and you gave me food, I was thirsty, and you gave me a drink.” Pastor J and her church believe caring for the vulnerable, hungry people is not only following Jesus’ lead – it is also sharing His love by serving.

The Pantry opens early Monday mornings at 6:30AM for the first shift of volunteers and runs until all the food is distributed with the third shift of volunteers around 6:30-7:00PM. The Ninety-five to one hundred people/families are served in about an hour, with 16,000 pounds of food stuffed into trunks. The pantry has a small budget of only $5,000, but with donations from community businesses and generous donors the pantry ends up serving over $214,000 worth of food per year!

This year they are starting a Building Campaign so that they can expand.  They want to add more space for food storage and a shelter area for those that are serving because the faithful volunteers are out in all kinds of weather, rain, snow, wind, heat, and freezing temperatures.  If you would like to learn more or donate, please visit www.journeycovchurch.org/pantry  They would love your support!