Seniors’ Food Pantry Enlists DeLauro’s Help

By the time U.S. House Rep. Rosa DeLauro left the Davenport-Dunbar food pantry, all that was left on the table were a few peach probiotic drinks.

Every one of the 80 bags that volunteers had prepared were gone, feeding Hamden’s growing demand for food assistance with dwindling federal dollars.

DeLauro was there Friday at the invitation of Sandra Kops, who runs the ​“Home Pantry” at the Davenport-Dunbar Residence, a federally-funded public housing complex for seniors on Putnam Avenue in southern Hamden.

The pantry, which takes place every other Friday at 9 a.m., serves Davenport-Dunbar residents, many of whom experience food insecurity.

DeLauro spoke with residents as they filed into the room to pick up bags containing nutritious meals, snacks, and breakfast foods. Too many people in her district, Connecticut’s third, she said, experience food insecurity, meaning they ​“don’t know where their next meal is coming from.”

“We live in a country of plenty. No one in this country should be food insecure,” she added.

DeLauro sits on the Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education Appropriations Subcommittee in the House as well as the subcommittee that oversees the Department of Agriculture and the Food and Drug Administration. Both subcommittees have jurisdiction over food assistance programs.

Since taking office, President Trump has made significant cuts to food programs. ​“We have never seen such an assault on nutrition programs,” said DeLauro, bemoaning the cuts of recent years.

In his 2020 budget, Trump proposed cutting the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), which administers food stamps, by $220 billion over the next ten years, a cut of one third. $17.4 billion will go in the 2020 fiscal year alone.

Decreasing SNAP funding has affected residents at Davenport-Dunbar. According to Nikia Hilton, who serves as resident services coordinator at the center, residents frequently say that every time they turn around, their SNAP benefits have decreased. Even if they only decrease by $10, she said, ​“when you’re already low income, that makes a big difference.”

Dwindling SNAP funding, DeLauro said, is why food banks like the one at Davenport-Dunbar are so important. ​“If you’re not eligible for food stamps, where do you go? You go to the food banks, so it’s critical that they’re well stocked.”

Though the federal government has not looked favorably on hunger-related programs under the Trump Administration, the Home Pantry depends on federal grant money, and as a result, needs DeLauro’s help.

When Kops started the pantry in March, 2017, it used funding from the Dunbar United Church of Christ and a few other Hamden Churches. Kops is a nutrition scientist, and also serves on the Board of Trustees of Dunbar United as well as on the board of Davenport-Dunbar, and she aims not just to provide calories to residents, but nutritious meals and snacks.

In 2018, the pantry got a $3,600 community development block grant from HUD, which must be spent by June. It was supposed to arrive in July of last year, but because of delays in HUD, Kops said she didn’t get it until January of this year. She has just a few months left to spend it all.

Now, she needs DeLauro’s help for the next grant. The pantry is applying a grant from the Emergency Food and Shelter Program, which is administered by FEMA. The grants, according to Kops, can reach up to $10,000 or $12,000. In order to apply, the pantry needs to specify its congressional district, and its representative, in this case DeLauro, must submit a letter in support of the application.

Kops said she had gotten DeLauro’s assurance that she would do whatever she can to support the pantry.

“Days Of Work”

The pantry gets some of its food from the CT Food Bank, and buys some from local retailers. Kops said that the food bank doesn’t provide very many protein-rich foods, so she has to buy those elsewhere. On Friday for example, residents got cans of chili that cost 67 cents from Stop and Shop.

In 2018, Kops said, the pantry spent $1,400 on over 13,000 pound of food from the food bank, along with $2,000 on food from elsewhere.

Preparations for the pantry begin a week and a day before the actual event. On the Thursday of the preceding week, Kops explained, she submits an order to the Connecticut Food Bank. On the following Tuesday, she and volunteers go to pick it up, and they bring it to the Dunbar United Church for storage until Friday. On Thursday, volunteers come to the church to bag all of the non-perishable items and bring them over to Dunbar-Davenport. On Friday morning, volunteers bring over the perishable items, which consist mostly of fresh produce.

“This is just the culmination of really multiple days of work,” said volunteer Kerry-Ann Dyce. ​“This is the best part though because you get to interact with the residents.”

Dyce is usually one of the volunteers who brings the perishable items over on Friday morning. She said that residents often start lining up half an hour or even an hour before the pantry opens. As many have mobility issues and standing for long periods of time can be a strain, she said, it’s a testament to their need.

Dyce said the pantry serves an ever-increasing number of people. On Friday, volunteers prepared 80 bags, and all 80 were gone by the end. According to Kops, when the pantry began in 2017, it served 28 people. Last month, 89 different residents showed up to one or both of the Fridays. There are over 100 people signed up, said Kops, but not all of them come every week.

Residents can sign up to have the bags delivered to them if they’re unable to come down to get them, though the pantry has to make sure it doesn’t add too many people to that list, said Dyce. Two weeks ago, volunteers made 18 deliveries before the 9 a.m. in-person pickup, and they were out of bags by 9:30.

Once residents have come down to get their bags, volunteers look over the lists to see who showed up and who didn’t so that they can submit the data to the CT Food Bank. If a resident who normally comes down to get a bag did not show up, someone will go up to the room to deliver a bag. Sometimes residents are out, said Dyce, and sometimes they simply forget.

Dyce left Sikorsky Aircraft in 2017, where she worked as a program manager, and devotes her time to volunteering. ​“I’m retired from work, but not from service, I like to say.” She has three sons, who sometimes join her at the pantry when they can.

She has been volunteering at the pantry for a year now, and she said she’s started to develop relationships with some of the residents. Each week, she said she learns little bits about their lives.

As she stood by the table handing out bags, one of the residents, Dee Ayers, called her over for a photo. Once the picture had been snapped, Ayers mentioned that she’s a veteran. She comes to the pantry whenever she can, but sometimes she has to miss it because of an appointment at the VA. When that happens, she has a friend (who was in line ahead of her) pick up her bag and bring it to her room for her.

As the last of the residents filed out of the room with their bags, DeLauro said her goodbyes and made her way to the door. She greeted one resident who she appeared to recognize and stopped for a selfie with two volunteers.