YORK, Pa. — One after another, York residents lined up for food at Harvest of Blessing on West Princess Street on Friday.
“It has just grown so big, we’ve never foreseen this," said Vickie Enders, who helps run Harvest of Blessing. "The [amount of] people that need food as much as they do now.”
As one of the largest food pantries in York County, Harvest of Blessing feeds close to 9,000 people every month.
CEO/Founder Jural Toby started the pantry over twenty years ago, as a mobile giveaway out of the back of her car.
As of June 2023, the pantry was serving over 76,000 clients in total.
But now those who are known for helping so many, need help themselves.
“The money they want us to pay, we cannot pay that type of money," said Enders.
The non-profit rents its current building from the York County Food Bank, which is raising the rent to a price the pantry cannot afford.
“I was in awe," said Kim Potts, who volunteers with Harvest of Blessing. "I just can’t believe…we’re all in this for the same reason, to feed the community.”
“It’s just a very sad situation because we’ve never seen this coming, even though we talked about it for months, we’re just in a really big bind," added Enders.
Harvest of Blessing has three to six months to find a new space that allows it to continue operating its food distribution.
“We’re looking for a building that will have a loading dock, at least 8,000 square feet, and we have to have applicable parking," explained Enders.
Walk-in coolers and freezers would be preferable, and they’d like to stay within York City limits.
“If we get too far out of the city, we don’t know how many of these people can reach us there and we don’t want to disappoint by not having the access like they have here to feed their families," said Enders.
Regardless of how long the search takes, the pantry says it will not let its clients go hungry.
“We said if we have to bring in our box trucks and vans we own and feed people that way, then that’s just what we do," said Enders. "We are not going to let these people down, we can’t.”
“We have the food, we have all the food we need to give out, we have the volunteers, we need a place," added Potts.
The York County Food Bank's President/CEO, Jennifer Brillhart, and its Board of Directors, provided the following statement to FOX43, regarding the rent increase:
"The York County Food Bank and Harvest of Blessing have collaborated in serving the community for many years, and in 2021, we were able to work together to provide a temporary location for Harvest of Blessing utilizing the Food Bank’s building on West Princess Street. As Harvest of Blessing’s program continued to grow, their needs outgrew the original scope of the relationship. With its limited resources, the Food Bank could not continue to subsidize Harvest of Blessing’s occupancy of the space, while at the same time looking for additional space itself. As the York County Food Bank continues to evaluate and plan for operations in this post-Covid era, priorities and resources need to be evaluated and aligned. The Food Bank communicated to Harvest of Blessing that we can assist with their transition over the next few months in order to minimize disruption of their services. The York County Food Bank is committed to both the greater York County community, as well as the community immediately served by the Princess Street location, and will work to ensure food distributions continue to occur at the location to serve the neighborhood and community."
A GoFundMe has also been created to help Harvest of Blessing.
If anyone has a potential location for the pantry to move into, please email Genders51@gmail.com.
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