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Date: 5/18/2021
HAMPSHIRE COUNTY – Through its Hilltown Pantry location in Goshen and main location in Northampton, the Northampton Survival center helps give residents access to food and other services.
Diane Drohan, volunteer manager at the Northampton Survival Center and Pantry Manager for the Hilltown Pantry said both centers have been operating for over 40 years.
“For the Northampton Survival Center, we have been here for 42 years and the Goshen one has been there even longer than that,” she said.
Drohan said both centers act as emergency food pantries and help connect people with different social services when necessary.
“We are strictly an emergency food pantry, so we serve food, toiletries and pet food when available. We are also a referral service so if people come to us and need any information on anything from housing to domestic abuse, we usually send them to Community Action or ServiceNet,” she said.
For the Northampton Survival Center, Drohan said most of the food comes from the Food Bank of Western Massachusetts and retail donations.
“The majority of the food comes from the Food Bank and we also get donations from different retail locations. Over the past year they have slimmed down considerably, we used to pick up from eight or nine different retail locations and currently we only do Stop and Shop and Big Y three times a week,” she said.
Drohan added that the center picks up bread and frozen meat from Stop and Shop along with bread and fresh produce from Big Y.
In Goshen, Drohan said most of the food comes directly from the Food Bank.
“For Goshen alone we also do a separate Food Bank order, and then we also do outside community donations, but because of COVID-19 we are not accepting because there is no one to do quality control on that food, so primarily our food comes from the foodbank and select donations,” she said.
Because of the COVID-19 pandemic, Drohan said there was a spike in the number of people looking for help while the center moved locations while its building was adjusted for newer guidance.
“Initially there was a large surge, something like 400 percent the first couple of months. We had to close our location here and we were able to get a location in the cafeteria at the Jackson Street School, so we worked out of there for five months until we were able to retrofit our building,” she said.
She added that currently the pantries operate through curbside pickups along with deliveries for homebound people.
“We do not allow clients in either the Survival Center or the Hilltown Pantry any longer. Hopefully that will change soon but for now we must do everything outdoor, curbside pickup. So, clients pull up and we bring the food out to them,” Drohan said.
Between both locations, Drohan said the pantries serve over 4,000 people across 18 different communities.
“In Goshen, we serve 265 individual people, which is between 15 and 25 households per week. For Northampton we see a lot more because we serve a broader community there, and that number is 3,985. Our household sizes at both places range from one person to nine people, and we give out approximately 25 pounds of food per person,” she said.
Along with weekly pickups, Drohan said people can also receive a monthly pickup that is larger than the weekly ones.
In order to receive food from either center, Drohan said people can call the Northampton center or reach out to the Food Bank to see which pantry they qualify for.
“They can call, they can go on our website, people can also get in touch with the Food Bank to find out which pantry they qualify for. We serve 18 different communities and the folks in the Hilltowns can choose the Northampton and Goshen pantry, but folks that do not live in the Hilltowns can only use the Northampton pantry,” she said.