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Faith communities join Have a Heart drive
archived from: 2009-03-09
by: Patricia Bartos

The East End Cooperative Ministry has launched its annual Have a Heart for Hunger campaign, running through March 31, during a time when the number of families seeking food pantries has dramatically increased.

The annual drive usually kicks off with the diocese’s annual LoveWalk for the Poor and extends over six weeks.

Founded in 1970, the interfaith ministry helps needy adults and at-risk children and young people in Pittsburgh’s East End communities. Bishop David Zubik, a former board president, spoke at the ministry’s Martin Luther King program in January.

Myrna Zelenitz, executive director of the East End Cooperative Ministry, reported that her group has seen a 20 percent increase in the last six months in the number of families seeking food.

She echoed what other aid agencies are reporting. “We’re seeing more clients, and now a different type of client — people who have always worked and never had to access food pantries or such programs. They don’t know how to access them. We really want to address their needs.”

She will focus on expanding the ministry’s case management services, “to make sure we can help.”

The ministry will also try to extend hours for its food pantry and drop-in center to meet the immediate needs.

“The Pittsburgh community has been incredibly giving,” she said.

The Have a Heart for Hunger effort involves:

• Making a donation. All contributions will be matched by an anonymous donor, up to $30,000, and will benefit the agency’s hunger programs.

• Organizing a food drive. Such efforts are being hosted by individuals, churches, synagogues, banks, schools, grocery stores and businesses to collect donations of non-perishable food items for the ministry’s food pantry.

• Eating pancakes. The EECM Young Professionals will host “Pancakes in the PM,” a benefit dinner at P&G Pamela’s in the city’s Strip District on Thursday, March 12, from 5:30-8 p.m. Suggested donation is $25.

Congregations and schoolchildren also help throughout the year.

Students at Sacred Heart School in Pittsburgh’s Shadyside neighborhood are putting together “birthday in a bag” kits for the ministry’s food pantry clients. The kits will have birthday cake mix, candles and other “little things that many of our clients can’t afford to provide their children,” according to the agency.

The student council at St. Bede School in Point Breeze is organizing a Lenten collection in the cafeteria, encouraging students to donate the cash they would have used to buy snacks to the ministry’s hunger programs.

Three Catholic parishes are on the ministry’s Council of Congregations, the advisory body for the agency. In addition to some 50 supporting congregations of many denominations and faiths, others are on the mailing list and contribute to the ministry through volunteers, financial or in-kind donations.

For 39 years the non-profit, interfaith human services organization has provided direct services to the homeless, hungry, elderly and children in the city’s economically distressed East End neighborhoods.

Agency programs include Meals on Wheels, a food pantry, soup kitchen, men’s emergency shelter, two transitional housing programs, a non-medical respite care program, in-school and after-school outreach programs, and a summer day camp.

For more information, contact EECM at 412-361-5549, ext. 422, by e-mail at eecm@eecm.org or on the Internet at www.eecm.org.

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