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Some things haven’t changed since POTS started operating in the Fordham section of the Bronx 29 years ago.
The Catholic Charities-affiliated agency still serves hot meals each day to the homeless and other hungry people of the community. The food pantry still gives away bags of groceries to people living in poverty or on the brink. Social workers and legal advisers continue to offer aid and support in its Justice Center. And no one in need is turned away.
“Everyone is welcome. Everyone is treated with integrity,” said Darlene Jeris, who recently succeeded longtime executive director Sister Mary Alice Hannan, O.P., who retired.
The mission of POTS has remained constant since its 1982 founding by Sister Jane Iannucelli, S.C., and Father Ned Murphy, S.J., but there is much that has changed—and very much for the better.
What began as a standard, limited-service soup kitchen, soon expanded to become a seven-days-a week meal program offering a wide array of services to the community’s needy in a warm and caring environment.
Most recently, POTS completed a move this month into a sparkling, top-to-bottom renovated building adjacent to the creaky, walk-up structure that had housed it for all these years.
That means that services can expand yet again, so instead of serving lunch to 22 people at a time, the larger dining room can accommodate 60 people at a sitting, with fewer sittings and shorter waits. And the gleaming, restaurant-style kitchen can handle it with aplomb.
It means that families who use the food pantry will no longer just be handed a bagful of groceries. They now can choose from an array of nutritious foods arranged on supermarket-style shelves, using a point system that ensures a balance of protein, whole grains and low-fat dairy products, and vegetables and fruit.
“Our community is rated one of the unhealthiest in the city, so whatever we can do to sway good dietary choice, we do it,” said Maureen Fergus Sheehan, the development director at POTS.
The new space also means that the team of lawyers, social workers and other members of the administrative staff can grow to accommodate the need, and that people seeking their services for eviction prevention, case management and application assistance have a pleasant, dignified waiting room.
There’s also more room for the Clothing Closet, a kind of no-charge thrift shop that’s stocked with donated clothing for children and adults, along with household items such as bedding.
“Yesterday, we had 35 people there in one hour,” said Ms. Jeris as she gave a tour of the building Sept. 22.
Finally, the new building gives POTS more room for the extra services that are provided, services that most take for granted, such as a safe place to receive mail and a place to get a free haircut, take a hot shower and get clean clothes.
“It’s like a dream come true,” Ms. Jeris said of the new building. “We’re just at the beginning of what we can do.”
POTS—whose full name is Part of the Solution—is a member agency of archdiocesan Catholic Charities’ Emergency Food Services division, an affiliation of community and parish-based food pantries and on-site programs for hot meals, as well as “Rusty’s Mobile Van,” a traveling food pantry supported by the Rusty Staub Foundation that provides meals and other services on Staten Island and in parts of the Bronx.
According to the latest Catholic Charities’ figures posted on its Web site, these programs provide 6.5 million meals in any given year throughout the archdiocese.
And they provide something more, according to Jeanne McGettigan, coordinator of emergency food services for archdiocesan Catholic Charities.
“All emergency food programs supported by Catholic Charities are characterized by making the dignity of each person central to service delivery,” she said, “and our partnership with parishes recognizes the centrality of acts of charity to each parish.
“Some pastors have said that their food pantry is the heart of the parish,” she said. “It’s a really accessible way for parishioners to put their faith in action and give back to the community.”
The food programs—financed by ever-shrinking government grants, Catholic Charities’ support, and donations from individuals and foundations—are generally run by a dedicated corps of volunteers to supplement the work of paid staffers, if any.
A large and well-known program like POTS, for example, has a paid staff but also attracts groups of volunteers from throughout the metropolitan area and even from other parts of the country. Smaller programs, like parish food pantries, often depend only on a roster of committed parishioners.
All of them, however, are seeing the effects of the stubborn economic downturn and the accompanying unemployment, as demand for food assistance grows. POTS, for example, says the use of its emergency food programs increased by 88 percent in the 2005-2010 period, with its food pantry the fastest growing segment.
“All the pantries are seeing more of what we call the working poor…people who are doing everything they can but still find themselves food insecure,” Ms. McGettigan said.
“It’s happening to people at higher and higher levels of income in New York City; people who were considered middle class are coming to food pantries now,” she said. “Everybody’s seeing it.”
Daune Moore, who’s been managing the POTS dining room for 12 years, said she’s noticed an increase in the number of families coming in for meals in recent years.
“It’s unfortunate,” she said, “but you don’t have to be homeless to be hungry. There are many different kinds of hungers, and POTS does what it can.”
