A food bank - and need for it - grows in Narberth

When Gigi Tevlin-Moffat saw fellow Narberth residents begin to fall apart in the recession, she looked for a way to help.

With neighbors, she organized food drives at the United Methodist Church. After a few events, Tevlin-Moffat went back to sending e-mails asking for donations and turned the food drives over to a few volunteers.

Nearly five weeks later, Tevlin-Moffat got a phone call: The number of clients was overwhelming the volunteers.

Tevlin-Moffat returned to the effort, and the Narberth Community Food Bank was born. Now, more than two years after those first informal food drives, Tevlin-Moffat is filing the paperwork to form a nonprofit charitable organization.

In the heart of the Main Line, Tevlin-Moffat found, some people are struggling, from the recently unemployed to senior citizens, and the problem isn't going away.

"It's everybody from every walk of life," she said. "It is people with children, it is single mothers, it is seniors and people who have medical bills. Every situation you have heard of, it's here. It's real."

Increased poverty and hunger began extending more broadly to the suburbs around 2004 and 2005, said Bill Clark, president and executive director of Philabundance, the area's largest hunger-relief organization.

But when the recession hit, Clark said, the need for aid in the suburbs accelerated.

"The number of people needing help across the board is up," Clark said, "but people needing help in the suburbs are much newer to it."

While Philabundance does not provide supplies to Narberth Community Food Bank, it does work with two nearby agencies: the Food Closet in Paoli and the Jewish Relief Agency in Bala Cynwyd. Clark said that about 30 percent of the agencies the hunger-relief organization works with are outside of Philadelphia.

At the Narberth Community Food Bank, volunteers distribute food Tuesday mornings and evenings. A week ago, after growing excited picking up two kiwis, Barbara Shaw said the paper products have helped her get by. Shaw, who is on disability and cannot work, said that, initially, she was embarrassed about coming to the food bank. But now she knows she needs the assistance.

"It's a big help to me," said Shaw, 61. "They carry a lot of paper products, which are extremely expensive."

Across the area, there are some basic reasons people need hunger relief, Clark said, including rising medical and food costs, fixed incomes, and unemployment. In the suburbs, the most common reason for needing assistance is unemployment.

"People don't understand what you had before, and how you get here," said an area resident who lost 60 pounds after losing her job as a cleaning woman. "You work and have a car, but then you don't have a job and can't pay for the gas."

Tevlin-Moffat, 44, a Narberth resident, decided to start a food drive after teachers and parents noted that some students were coming hungry to Belmont Hills Elementary School, which her daughter attended.

"We had people calling us saying, 'You know, these kids haven't eaten, and there's not money in the lunch account,' " said Tevlin-Moffat, who was the president of the school's home and school association. "We would go and buy groceries and put it on someone's step, but that would only solve that week's problem, not next week's.

"These are kids. We knew, if someone doesn't step in, you end up raising the next generation of poverty," she said.

The food bank became Tevlin-Moffat's way of stepping in, and its volunteers fuel its day-to-day operations.

Jan Doan, 77, and Gloria Eichner, 76, have been with the food bank since its start, after hearing about it at their church, Holy Trinity Lutheran. They organize the food bank every Tuesday morning before the clients arrive. On a typical Tuesday, the volunteers see about 35 to 40 people, and Eichner does eight porch box drops.

"It was a surprise to see the people who needed this," Doan said while bagging donated muffins, bread, and scones. "But it's such a wonderful feeling to watch it grow."

The Wynnewood branch of Whole Foods ran two drives for the Narberth agency: One in which customers could donate at the checkout counter items the bank needed; and most recently, Cantastic, in which 1 percent of net canned-goods sales went to the food bank. Acme Markets and Trader Joe's also donate food and supplies.

"We've survived on the good spirits and the care of the community," Tevlin-Moffat said.

As the need for the food bank grows, so does the need for money to successfully run a mini-organization out of a tidy yet cramped room at the Methodist church, which donates the space.

Dipping into her resource pool, Tevlin-Moffat asked friends to help her file for 501c(3) status, which would classify the food bank as a charitable organization and allow it to apply for grants and donations. She's on the verge of completing the process.

As the food bank has become a fixture in Narberth, Tevlin-Moffat said, the community's understanding has played a large role in making sure people are getting what they need. She sometimes gets phone calls from people who ask her to add a stop to the bank's box-delivery service.

"We have neighbors who realize, 'I haven't seen her lately. She hasn't been outside. The lights aren't on,' " Tevlin-Moffat said.

A note is left on top of the box with two options: Take the food and put the box back out to get another delivery the next week, or don't put the box back out and accept its contents as a gift.

"Nobody has said 'don't come back' yet," Tevlin-Moffat said.