Summer Donations Slow at Pacoima Center : Cash-Poor Pantry for Needy May Close

After nine years in one of the poorest sections of the San Fernando Valley, the Center of Community Promotion in Pacoima is nearly broke and may have to close its doors to the approximately 400 needy people it feeds each month, its director said Monday.

“It’s been bad, but never this bad before,” said Joanne Wright, head of the center, a pantry and food-service organization. “If things don’t pick up, we will have to close.”

As Wright spoke, an almost steady stream of people flowed into the small, stuffy office of the center--several Latino families, an Anglo family from Sun Valley, a young, pregnant woman, a disheveled-looking man. All were asking for emergency supplies of food.

Their presence underscored the center leaders’ point that hunger exists in the doldrums of summer as much as it does at the height of the winter holidays.

But donations don’t.

“During the holidays everyone thinks in terms of what they can do to help the poor,” said Kathy Deetz, the organization’s treasurer. “When we go to sit down to a big Thanksgiving dinner we are thinking about food and that other people might be hungry. In the summer we are thinking about going to the beach and dieting.”

The possibility of the center’s closing already has sent shudders through the tightknit network of predominantly church- and temple-operated food pantries in the Valley because the ripple effect would strain other organizations.

“When one pantry hurts, we all will feel the pain because we have to pick up the referrals,” said Avamelle Smith, executive director of Valley Interfaith Council, a coalition of at least seven food pantries and other service organizations. “Everyone is strained this time of year. Unfortunately the pantries in the neediest areas are the first to feel it.”

The problem at the Center of Community Promotion began in June, when $7,000 in federal emergency food money, which was funneled through United Way to five of the Interfaith Council’s pantries, ran out. At the same time, grant money from the American Lutheran Church also was depleted.

The organization was founded in 1976, mainly as a Latino outreach ministry, by several Lutheran congregations. Over the years it grew into a food pantry and service organization through private and church donations.

But, because the center is supported largely by seven small Lutheran congregations in the East Valley, it lacks the strong financial base of other Valley pantries that are supported by large Catholic or Jewish congregations.

This, coupled with the traditionally donation-sluggish summer months, has cleaned out both the bank account and cupboard of the organization’s humble storefront office among pool halls and bars along a run-down section of Van Nuys Boulevard.

Two weeks ago the telephone was disconnected because of unpaid bills. The organization was 2 1/2 months behind in its $250 rent. For two months Deetz has personally paid the $500 monthly salary of the organization’s only paid office assistant.

A plea for help in a special newsletter brought in $700, which paid the rent and reconnected the phone. Deetz said that, after the utility bill is paid, there will be $255 in the bank.

“Right now it is critical for us to pay the rent and the utilities,” Deetz said. “If things don’t clear in the next couple weeks we are going to have to shut down for a while.”

Center leaders say their monthly overhead is about $1,000 and that they spend about $25,000 a year on food.

About 100 families a week go to the organization’s office to receive food on Wednesdays and Fridays. Most have been referred from other agencies or churches.

The organization now must cut back its food purchases from Community Food Resources, a government-subsidized food bank in Vernon, Deetz said.

“When you see the food people are willing and grateful to eat, it’s shocking,” Deetz said. “We look at things like stale bread and half-rotten fruit and vegetables and turn away.

“We are just going to hang on as long as we can and buy as much as we can,” she said. “I’m not ready to say it’s hopeless.”