HAZLETON, Pa. — We've all noticed it: The cost of living has gone up significantly in the past few years.
The Hazleton One Community Center has noticed, too, and strives to combat this within their community by providing more than 200 bags filled with milk, meat, vegetables, and other foods to make a meal for any family regardless of need.
"That started in April through a grant that we received, and that program includes dinner for kids. Fork Over Love is our partner, and they bring food from the restaurant ready to eat. We have the food distribution, and we have the community dinner the third Friday of every month," said Rossanna Gabriel, the executive director of the Hazleton One Community Center.
Gabriel says everything is expensive now, and there are a lot of families old and new to Hazleton that need this help. She says this cuts down the expense of a grocery bill for families so that they can use that money for something else.
Alba Castillo lives in Hazleton and is picking up her own bag of food. She agrees this helps the community save money when they otherwise would not be able to.
"For example, a gallon of milk right now—they're getting milk, they're getting meat, you know, it's a whole meal for two or three days," Castillo said.
On Wednesday morning, the community center had ten to fifteen volunteers helping distribute the bags to families. The Lehigh Valley Health Network partners with the center through its Prevention of Violence program and sends employees to volunteer. Clara Garcia has been volunteering at the center for ten years, even before her position with LVHN.
"This program helps people to live and to get a better life, to improve their life and do it a little better for them," said Garcia.
Eric Helfrich, a volunteer from Amazon, says a lot of the people moving into Hazleton from other countries benefit from these weekly food distributions as they get settled in.
"They depend on this food for their livelihood. It helps them get through the week, and it's just a wonderful program that they're doing here," Helfrich said.
Hazleton residents expressed their gratitude to volunteers as they were handed their bags of groceries. They were also reminded to come back this Friday for the free community dinner in the center's hall, where they will be serving rice, pork, salad, dessert, and more for anyone, regardless of need.
"Each of the individual people coming through says 'thank you' or 'gracias,' so obviously, they, as individuals, are enthusiastic about the program, and I think the community itself looks at it and says, by the way, we're feeding our next-door neighbors."
A program like this is something many communities can benefit from as we continue to see rising prices in our grocery stores.