Article - Channeling Food To The Needy

Channeling Food To The Needy
by William I. Lengeman III
(Originally published in Harrisburg Magazine, November 1995)

Five days a week, 52 weeks a year, the two distinctive white and red vans of the New Cumberland-based organization, Channels, traverse Central Pennsylvania's roadways. The vans pick up excess food, food that would otherwise have wound up in the dump, from area restaurants, businesses, schools, hospitals, churches and more.

This bounty is then delivered to numerous area agencies, which distribute the food to the needy. It's a labor of love and a mission for which there clearly is a need. Currently Channels redistributes over 35,000 pounds of excess food per month.

Channels occupies a large one-room office on the first floor of the PNC building, in New Cumberland. The inauspicious room is in a mild state of disarray, the result of a noisy construction project. Jean Beatty, the distinguished-looking, soft-spoken, executive director of the group, tunes out the clamor and discusses how she took a background in marketing and communications, combined it with a concern for the poor and built a successful charitable organization in the short space of six years.

"I think a lot of visibility has been given to the hunger problem in the last few years. I read an article in the Philadelphia paper about an operation called Philabundance and thought it was a good idea, something that should be done."

Beatty claims that she initially had no intention of starting such a group, until she found out that no one else in the area was doing it. Channels started in 1989, an informal project run by Beatty and a group of 20 volunteers at the Dauphin County Medical Alliance, where Beatty worked at the time.

Initially the volunteers picked up and delivered about 300 pounds of frozen food per month in their own vehicles. Beatty saw a need for something more. "I felt a need to market it since it had kind of come to a standstill. So I proceeded to take it as a full time job."

Channels incorporated in June of 1989. When the group won a grant two years later that enabled them to buy a refrigerated van, the scope of the operation expanded. Channels was able to pick up perishable food, where previously they had been confined to frozen foods.

Dave Hummer has worked for Channels for about a year and a half. He says he likes the job because he feels like he's doing something good.

I tag along with Dave as he makes a run, delivering food to St. Francis Soup Kitchen, at 15th and Zarker, in Harrisburg. It's a balmy August day. The streets and sidewalks are crowded as we drive up on the Hill, past boarded up buildings and weed choked, trash strewn vacant lots.

When we enter the high fence that surrounds St. Francis, a crowd of happy volunteers comes out to help Dave unload the large panel van. After dropping off his booty, stacks of Pizza Hut pizzas, large tin trays stacked full of hamburger patties and more, Dave meets up with Larry Jante, who's driving Channels' small passenger van.

Dave and Larry exchange food, coordinating their routes so that everything gets to the right place before day's end. These strategy sessions are important since Channels doesn't warehouse any food. If it's picked up today, then it's delivered today.

Nowadays, Channels has grown to a staff of 5 full time persons, Jean Beatty, Dave, Larry and two project directors. The organization operates in Dauphin, Cumberland and Perry counties, with occasional forays into York.

From humble beginnings, serving one donor, Hersheypark, and eight agencies, the group now serves as many as 70 donors and more than 50 agencies on a daily basis. Channels implements its benevolence through several programs, aside from its regular deliveries.

The Family Outreach Program is still run by many of Channels' original volunteers, in cooperation with area churches. This program targets needy persons, including hundreds of families in the low-income housing developments at Morrison Towers, Hall Manor, and Jackson Lick Apartments. Many of these people were previously passed over, falling through the cracks of Channels' regular delivery schedule as well as efforts by other groups.

"We were finding that we had a lot of food and we weren't hitting families really," says Beatty. "So they would repackage for families of four and another group of volunteers would pick them up and deliver them to families previously designated by churches. It's really a delight to be able to reach those people who are not covered by another agency."

The Community Dinner Program was begun in 1993, a concept which Betty says is "aimed at drawing people together from different circumstances so that they could have a feeling of community with others."

The Breakfast Buggy Program started in March of this year and is designed to bring a bagged breakfast or lunch to those directly in need. The program, a cooperative effort of retirees at Country Meadows and Channels, currently delivers some 200 lunches daily.

Another recent program, the Plant A Row project, was suggested by Patriot News food editor, George Weigel. Area gardeners are encouraged to plant an extra row for the poor and drop it off at any of four sites on the East or West Shore. The fledgling program has already collected 1,275 pounds of fresh vegetables and fruit throughout this, it's first season.

Area agencies are only too happy for any help they can get, says Larry Ronk, director of the induction center for Teen Challenge Harrisburg, an old "customer" of Channels.

"We were probably one of the first agencies that they ever delivered to, back when they used to deliver in their own personal cars. They're providing a tremendous service to organizations like ours where we have people in residence and we're feeding them every day of the year."

Brenda Ervin, kitchen supervisor and cook at Harrisburg's Downtown Daily Bread, another long time recipient of Channels food, says she remembers when deliveries were made by "two little old ladies, spilling soup in their car." Ervin is unreserved in her admiration for Channels.

"I think it's a wonderful organization. They supply us with a big, big quantity of food and I really don't know what we'd do without them. I can't say enough nice things about them."

Beatty says that food service personnel are equally grateful to have a program like Channels to take excess food off of their hands, noting that it offers them an option to merely dumping their excess.