Over ten(10) years ago, under the leadership of Rev. Ann G. Bridgers, a food pantry ministry was started at Port Royal UMC in partnership with “Second Helpings”. Since its conception this ministry has provided groceries to a multitude of God’s hungry children. Not only do we serve northern Beaufort County, but we have folks coming from Jasper and Colleton County, as well as others. Second Helpings is our only provider of food; however, we have regular monetary donations and from time to time we receive donations of mostly dry goods for our pantry. With monetary donations we can supplement when we have delivery loads with very low pounds.
This ministry started out providing food for somewhere around 40 households each Friday with just a few hundred pounds of food. The ministry grew at a slow and steady pace but the number of people in need escalated at the start of Covid-19, post covid, and the severity of our fractured economy. This led us to distributing food twice a week in July 2022.
Our average number of people served each week (which includes a Tuesday and Friday distribution) since before July has been 600 plus. The week of September 10th 815 of God’s children were provided food. We did this, NO God did this with only 700 lbs. of food delivered on Tuesday and 4893 lbs. delivered on that Friday.
We also get a small delivery on Saturdays from the Farmers Market in Port Royal. Second Helpings rescues any food that the vendors do not wish to take back home.
Without the guidance and spiritual support of Pastor Ann, this ministry would not survive. So many times, our folks need to be spiritually fed as well as their physical bodies.
We have on average 20 volunteers we can call on when needed to be sure this ministry is able to run smoothly.
In His service,
Vicki Young
Administrative and Food Manager