The Gateway Food Pantry in Arnold will soon visit homes inside its distribution area, seeking food donations.
Executive Director Patrick McKelvey said it will be the first time in its history the pantry has held a door-to-door food drive, and the effort will be called the Gateway Food Pantry Doorstep Food Drive.
He said Gateway needs to hold the door-to-door food collection because it has seen a 30 percent increase in clients since last year and a decrease of more than 50 percent in food donations.
“We have to throw a Hail Mary,” he said. “Our Hail Mary is going out to our community and telling them, ‘We know times are tough, but we could really use your help right now.’”
The pantry, originally called the Arnold Food Pantry, was created in 1984, and it changed its name in June 2024.
The pantry offers food assistance to residents of the Fox C-6 and Windsor C-1 school districts and those who live in the 63127 and 63128 ZIP codes in south St. Louis County.
McKelvey said Gateway will distribute collection bags between Sept. 3 and Sept. 6 to homes in Arnold, Imperial, the Jefferson County portion of Fenton, Oakville and portions of the Concord and Sappington areas in south St. Louis County.
He said the pantry will collect the donations at noon on Sunday, Sept. 14.
“We plan on going to 20,000 homes,” he said. “The goal is to collect 20,000 pounds of high quality food for our clients. I don’t want to have to go door to door to 20,000 houses, but we have to. We do not have a choice.”
McKelvey said students from Fox, Seckman, Oakville and Mehlville high schools have volunteered to help pantry volunteers distribute bags and collect the donations.
“It is exciting to have students who are willing to help distribute bags to 20,000 homes,” he said. “We would not be able to do this without the help of the students.”
Superintendent Paul Fregeau said Fox C-6 is always excited and proud when students volunteer to help charitable organizations.
“That is a big part of the work we do to develop positive community members who will contribute to the places they live,” he said.
McKelvey said volunteers will not go to every house to seek collections, just homes in subdivisions with sidewalks and minimal traffic.
“We want to make sure all of our volunteers are safe,” he said.
McKelvey said the amount of food the pantry has received this year is about half of what it got the previous year.
He said from January 2024 through July 2024, the pantry received just more than $507,000 worth of food, but this year, that number fell to just more than $244,000 in the same time frame.
McKelvey also said the demand for food assistance has risen in each of the past four years.
He said in July 2022 the pantry provided food for 133 families each week. That number rose to 149 in July 2023; 173 in July 2024 and 213 this July.
The pantry also is providing more emergency food distributions, which are provided to anyone seeking help one time. When the pantry gets a request for an emergency food distribution, pantry employees and volunteers look to see if the person is eligible to become a regular client or if the person needs to seek help from a different food pantry.
McKelvey said the pantry provided 60 emergency food distributions in May; 52 in June; 58 in July and 56 as of Aug. 22.
“Our pantry had never had back-to-back months with 50-plus emergency distributions,” he said. “Now, we have had four consecutive months with 50-plus emergencies.”
To make up for the shortage of food, Gateway has nearly quadrupled the amount of money it spends to feed clients, McKelvey said, adding that in July, the pantry was purchasing about $1,000 worth of food a week after spending only about $1,000 to buy food for the entire month of July 2024.
“To feed our clients, we have to buy more food,” he said. “We can’t do what we are doing right now forever.”
McKelvey said the pantry is still benefiting from the Girls Scouts’ April Showers collection held in the spring, the Post Office’s Stamp Out Hunger drive in May and Boy Scouts’ Scouting for Food in November.
However, he said the pantry’s supplies begin to dwindle in August.
“We are trying to bridge the gap between Stamp out Hunger, April Showers and Scouting for Food,” he said. “I hope in November, after Scouting for Food, we won’t have to buy food.”
McKelvey also said he hopes the pantry will not have to hold a door-to-door collection in the future. However, he also said Gateway is prepared to make it an annual event, if needed.
“We don’t want this many people hungry in our community. If this is the new normal, we hope to make this an annual event each August or September,” he said.
Those seeking assistance or wanting to donate may visit gatewayfoodpantry.org or call 636-287-3663. Gateway Food Pantry is open from 8 a.m. to 1 p.m. Mondays through Fridays and from 8 a.m. to 10 a.m. on Saturdays and Sundays.