Decade-long effort pays off for food pantry

By ADAM C. UZIALKO
Staff Writer

For 10 years, the Keyport Ministerium Food Pantry has sought donations and grants with the goal of constructing a building of its own.

After scrimping, saving and searching, the Ministerium is set to cut the ribbon Jan. 24 on the O.O. John Reed Community Center at 42 Elizabeth St.

“I’m happy about two things,” Isaiah Cooper, executive director of the Keyport Ministerium Food Pantry, said. “No. 1: The building is up, finished and paid for — we don’t owe a lousy dime to anybody, anywhere, for anything.

“The second thing is all of our volunteers are unpaid, including me. What comes through the door goes out to the community [that] we serve, which is the way it should be.”

The center is named for O.O. John Reed, who founded the Keyport Ministerium Food Pantry and served as executive director and chairman of its board of trustees until his retirement in 2005. He passed away on April 23, 2006.

The Keyport Ministerium Food Pantry serves residents from 20 towns in the greater Bayshore area, including Aberdeen, Hazlet, Matawan, Middletown and Union Beach.

Cooper said the new facility will serve as a central location for social services, education programs and food distribution to more than 200 families each month.

For now, social services are limited to assisting residents with the application process for services such as food stamps, but Cooper said he expects the O.O. John Reed Community Center to help connect residents to a vast array of resources, nonprofits and assistance programs.

In addition, the board of trustees is formulating ideas to add education programs to the community outreach efforts, he said, noting that many active members have a background in education.

Previously, the Keyport Ministerium Food Pantry operated out of St. Mary the Virgin Episcopal Church in Keyport, but more space was required to sustain its operations, Cooper said.

The 2,403-square-foot O.O. John Reed Community Center is the culmination of the efforts of nine interdenominational churches that came together to raise $208,000 in support of the mission to provide relief to their neighbors living in poverty. In 2011, Monmouth County approved a $134,375 Community Development Block Grant to support the construction of the center.

The Community Church of Keyport provided the land on which the O.O. John Reed Community Center stands at a cost of $1 per year for 99 years, Cooper said.

The Rev. Dawn Seaman, pastor of the Community Church, said the congregation was in a unique position to provide the location. “It’s been a long time coming and we’ve been under construction here on the property since July 2013, so we’re excited to see this completed,” Seaman said. “Our mission statement has been that we are the church that feeds people body and soul, so we have supported the food pantry here in Keyport since its inception in 1983. … But we knew that the food pantry needed a site for a larger pantry for a long time.”

According to Seaman, the new building will expand the Keyport Ministerium Food Pantry’s capacity to store food, while allowing for a resource center where residents can access the Internet and, perhaps in the future, discuss individual situations with a social worker.

In addition, the new building provides space for clients to wait, Seaman said. Previously, they would have to stand in line outside, even in inclement weather. The new building is also accessible to those with disabilities, she added.

Bill Seaman, a trustee, said the expanded facility provides a single location to store donations and allows for the food pantry to accept more.

“Previously, all the food was in multiple places,” he said. “Now we can accept more, and [the new building] also increases the benefit services we can provide.”

“We also have the space for client confidentiality when they talk to our intake people,” Dawn Seaman said, emphasizing that privacy adds a dimension of dignity to the process of receiving aid. “In addition, in our church fellowship hall next door, we have partnered with another, separate [nonprofit] called the Bayshore Lunch Program, which provides a free hot lunch.”

The lunch program provides meals three days a week, but Seaman said that will be expanded to five days a week by mid-February.

“It’s a dream that we’re seeing come true,” Seaman said. “We’re very proud, and we’re very humble to be able to be a part of this ministry and this community.

“We welcome members of the community to come and have a meal with us, to come and use the services of the pantry, and also to volunteer their time in serving fellow members of the community.”

Cooper said assisting his neighbors living in poverty is a lifelong dedication, and the O.O. John Reed Community Center is an important aspect of the pantry’s outreach.

“Poverty and hunger is a 24/7, 365-daya year job — not just around Christmas and the holidays when you want a feel-good moment,” Cooper said.

He credited local police departments, the Keyport Garden Club and other community based organizations for overseeing food drives to help supply the Keyport Ministerium Food Pantry and for supporting its mission of extending a helping hand to those living in poverty.

He was adamant that residents who accept his organization’s help should not feel disempowered, as they are being welcomed with open arms by friends and neighbors.

“We want to emphasize that you are part of the community,” Cooper said.