Tigard church feeds city’s hungry

Tigard Covenant Church’s food pantry is a big success, feeding the area’s hungry with donations from local grocers

By Geoff Pursinger

The Times, Nov 12, 2009

Jaime Valdez / The Times

FILLING A NEED – Black Long (from left), Larilee Flett and Jodi Duty fill a box with food at the Tigard Covenant Church. The church recently opened a food pantry in the church, feeding the area’s hungry with enough food for three meals a day for an entire week.

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For Barb Woolverton, feeding the hungry wasn’t an option, but a decree from God.

“We had been approached by the Oregon Food Bank about opening up a food pantry in our church, but we had said no,” she said. “Then, I ended up in the hospital and then I heard a voice say ‘you will do this’ and I knew that it was God’s will.”

It was then that Woolverton, an associate pastor at Tigard Covenant Church near Beef Bend Road in Tigard, cleaned out a closet, stocked it with food, and became an official agent of the Oregon Food Bank, handing out food to anyone in the Tigard-Tualatin area who needs it.

“These people come in so humbled,” she said, surveying a line of about four families, waiting for their weekly allotment of groceries. “But when they leave they are just so relieved, it’s such a weight off of them.”

Woolverton and the rest of her crew of volunteers have been feeding the hungry since April, giving every family who walks through their doors enough food to provide three square meals a day, for an entire week.

The food comes from a variety of places, including Grocery Outlet, Safeway, Haggen Food & Pharmacy, and Fred Meyer, as well as the Oregon Food Bank.

“We also get a lot of people who come in and donate food,” Woolverton said. “People just come in and say ‘hey, can you use this?’”

The food pantry recently received leftover Halloween candy from a local resident, which they hope to distribute to some of the kids.

“The most important thing for us is to give people nutritious meals,” she said. “But it’s also nice to have a treat every once in a while.”

Every family receives fruit, vegetables, bread, meat — including pork, turkey, and ham — pasta, canned meals, eggs, rice, cereal, dairy products, vegetable oil, and juice as well as other items that the pantry may have on hand, including margarine, coffee and soda.

The average family will take home approximately 50 pounds of food each week, Woolverton said.

It all stems from David Greenidge, the church’s pastor for the past five years.

Greenidge can remember what it was like to grow up hungry.

“It didn’t happen a lot, but I can remember some days for lunch eating a mayonnaise sandwich,” he said. “I’ve never forgotten what it’s like to be hungry.”

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