THE SIMPLE WAY

Together we want to cultivate a neighborhood we can be proud of, and we want our neighbors to thrive. We do that through providing access to resources, green spaces, and celebrations.

Our main mode of resource support is through our food choice pantry, which helps folks become more food secure. We know that to address food insecurity, the available food options must be nutritious, fresh, and unprocessed, the food must be affordable, and people must have reliable access to nutritious food at all times.

We also want to increase the number of green spaces in our community, not only to beautify the neighborhood but also to create a sustainable supply of fresh produce for our food choice pantry.

In addition, we want to encourage hope in our community. We don't want a lack of resources to be what keeps people from being able to celebrate together.

We currently have a food choice pantry, where we see close to 150 individuals shop each week. Through our pantry, while people are waiting to shop, we do our best to connect neighbors to other resources as we can. Last year we shared over 150,000 pounds of food with the community. We have worked to create consistent access for individuals to choose food that they will use and enjoy. We work to introduce new items, and provide examples of how these items might be used. We use signage to help direct people to healthier choices, and give folks as much fresh produce as we can or have to share. We also work hard to reliably provide staples so that families and individuals know what they can rely on from us, so they may be able to reallocate money/resources they would have had to spend on these things on other things.

We currently partner with Philadelphia Fight to provide free COVID testing and vaccination in our gardens once a week.

We have two vegetable gardens, and a park space that we care for and maintain. We're expanding our growing capabilities to use our own produce to share through our food distribution.

Pre-COVID, we hosted neighborhood celebrations around different holidays and significant occasions. Since COVID, we've changed the ways we do these, mostly by providing neighbors with some of the resources they might need to do it themselves. For example, in the past we've put book bags together for a back to school event. In 2020 we set up a 'school shop' where folks that come to our food pantry, could also choose the supplies their kids needed. We did the same for Thanksgiving, and Easter (provided items folks needed/wanted for these celebrations).

Each year we host a Christmas Toy Store. Neighbors register, are given a time slot, and come and shop for toys for their children. Many of the same people finding support for food participated in this store, too.

We also have a partnership with Eastern University to provide one full scholarship for a traditional student and one 50% discounted scholarship for an adult non-traditional student each year. While Eastern provides the scholarship for tuition, we provide support with books and other necessities. We have had 7 scholars graduate since the inception of this partnership.

As a hyper-local organization, we are literally in the middle of the neighborhood we serve. We have local residents that work and volunteer with us, and our Executive Director is also a local resident. This allows us to truly listen to our neighbors and respond to their actual needs. In addition, we partner with other local organizations (like Philabundance and Esperanza Health Center) which increases our capabilities for meeting our goals.

In 2021, we gave away over 280,000 pounds of food to our neighbors. We served 7,741 adults, 1,604 seniors, and 5,171 children through our Food Choice Pantry. We added 1 additional food pantry open day, including appointment times to accommodate our senior community members. We hired a staff person, Christina Arroyo. She is the fifth person from our neighborhood to be added to our staff! We built a ramp to allow for easier access into the building for people with carts or who use assistive devices. We built 3 new garden beds to grow more fresh produce to share through our Food Choice Pantry. And in December, we had almost 100 adults shop from over 800 donated toys for their children.