Faith Community Church

Faith Church has partnered with Hillside Food Outreach, a food pantry established to help provide food assistance to families with children, frail elderly, disabled and housebound individuals. One of the things that makes Hillside unique, is its focus on providing food for individuals with special health and dietary requirements which, in many circumstance, goes unaddressed. We have instituted a program that offers healthy alternatives for those in need of food. Hillside delivers fresh fruits, vegetables, and fresh dairy products to people, as well as grocery staples. Hillside also conducts a Youth Packing night. Our youth group goes to the warehouse one Friday evening each month to pack over 1200 staple bags for delivery to Hillside clients. The youth get to meet others from organizations across the county. Hillside Food Outreach is also focused on long term change. First by delivering healthier food alternatives, we help clients to maintain a better level of health and nutrition, hopefully leading to decreased medical costs. The other way we focus on long term change is developing a bond with the clients wherever we deliver food. Hillside volunteers deliver in teams of 2 and deliver to the same 6-8 client households every month. This has enabled volunteers to establish a relationship with our clients that grows over time. As relationships develop, we have found that many clients open up with the volunteer, sharing their concerns. Many of our clients are alone and isolated, they mistrust 'official professionals' and other help agency professionals, however they view our volunteers as neighbors who care, allowing volunteers to be proactive in helping a client seek the assistance they may need. This is especially true for our elderly who are very alone, and fearful of asking help.