PLATTSBURGH — The Plattsburgh Interfaith Food Shelf enters the last quarter of the year with an increase in foot traffic.
“I would say that our numbers are up about 8% in terms of the number of household and the clients we serve,” Dorothy Latta, coordinator, said.
“There is clearly still a need and potentially a growing need for emergency food. We are seeing more visits, but close to 70% of our visits, people only come once or twice a year. They are using it as real emergency food. They are not using it to come every month as continuing assistance, and that’s exactly what we’re designed for.
“We are designed to be a safety net, not continuing assistance. So, we’re very happy we are here for people who find themselves all of a sudden needing some help in the short term.”
Among the clientele are folks who were not aware of the organization’s service or are first-time users.
“Because of our name, Plattsburgh Interfaith Food Shelf, we have had a few people who indicated that they thought we only served people in Plattsburgh,” Latta said.
“We serve all people in Clinton County. It’s available to anybody in Clinton County in need of emergency food assistance. No financial restrictions or requirements. People don’t realize we are here for the entire county. Over the last years, we have served people in 42 zip codes within Clinton County. So, it’s clear we are serving the entire county.”
In September, the Food Shelf held its first ever golf tournament fundraiser at the Barracks Golf Course.
“We were finding that our expenditures, the cost of food was exceeding our donations,” Latta said.
“We needed to take some steps to address this. We did several things. We took some steps in terms of selecting less expensive choices. We still want to provide a variety of choices for our clients, but if one them is a little more expensive, we deleted that. We made some internal modifications, but we also realized we need to bring in some more income.
“This golf tournament was incredibly successful. We were overwhelmed by the support. We raised over $10,000. The community was just very, very, generous.”
A number of local businesses made financial donations or donated merchandise for raffle baskets.
“We were fortunate it was an absolutely beautiful day,” she said.
“So, the people who played had a good time and said they would be back. I don’t know if they would have said that if it poured rain. This was an enormous success and well, well supported by the community, so we’re going to do it again next year.”
The Food Shelf got a heavy lift from the recent Plattsburgh Noon Kiwanis Club’s “Stuff the Strand” food drive.
“They have people take it over to the Strand Theatre and they fill up the seats (with food),” Latta said.
“They split the food between us and JCEO (Joint Council for Economic Opportunity). This was a tremendous success. They gave us over 2,500 pounds of food, over a ton of food. We benefited from that just this last week. Kiwanis did this as a community food drive and it was just tremendous.”