So many partners had to find a new way to distribute food when the pandemic hit, including New Hope Ministries (a partner of the Food Bank) who feeds 9,000 families in Cumberland, York and Adams counties. The pantry implemented a drive through mobile distribution, where families would remain in their vehicles and staff would load food boxes into their trunks.
The pantry is fully stocked thanks to the support of the community and to Joanne Fortney, the Food Program Manager at New Hope Ministries, who never works the same day twice. While her job involves anything from driving the truck, loading/offloading food, to doing paperwork, perhaps her favorite thing to do is simply talking with her guests, even from behind a mask. Joanne intentionally calls the people who rely on New Hope services ‘guests’ instead of ‘clients,’ because she believes volunteers and staff such as herself are inclined to treat someone who is their guest with even more compassion, empathy, and love.
Joanne is certainly looking out for the New Hope people who are struggling to get back on their feet and she knows it may take some time to fully recover. As the holiday season approaches, Joanne is already thinking of how to make Thanksgiving extra special. After all, what host wouldn’t want to serve their guests a delicious Thanksgiving meal? Often, what ends up making holidays like these wonderful for those who cannot afford to celebrate is the generosity of the community. One Thanksgiving miracle, Joanne shares, was the time a donor provided a truckload of turkeys for the people at New Hope as a holiday surprise.
“We were needing turkeys one year,” Joanne explains. “And I had no idea where I was going to get (them)– I believe it was somewhere along the line between 50 and 75 turkeys. And I was sitting in our manager’s office, and she has a window up front. And down the side of the building comes this pickup truck full of turkeys! We didn’t ask anybody. We prayed about it, but we didn’t ask anybody. And here they show up with exactly the number that we needed. How does that happen?”
Like so many of our partners, New Hope Ministries doors will be continued to be open to offer help to those in need. The staff of New Hope Ministries is continuing to make a difference in the lives of their guests, but, Joanne says, the guests have an impact on the staff as well.
“I think the guests make a difference in our lives. They change us; they keep us humble. I’ve learned so much from them about life in general. Most of the people would give you the shirt on their back. Not just because you need one, but because they would rather give than receive,” she smiles.