Pantry’s mission is food for the hungry
By Terry Murry on Tuesday, March 29th, 2022 in Columbia Basin News More Top Stories
PENDLETON – The Eastern Oregon Center for Independent Living has a food pantry that operates under a basic philosophy – no one should be hungry. EOCIL’s Crescencia Witherspoon said there are no requirements.
“Our pantry is open to everyone in the community,” she said. “We go as far as to Hermiston and Boardman. Anyone who is needing food to take care of their family is eligible.”
EOCIL is at 322 S.W. Third Street in Pendleton. Food can be picked up any weekday between 9 a.m. to noon, and 2-3 p.m. The food is canned or otherwise nonperishable. There are no requirements that must be met. Witherspoon said that people do need to answer a few basic questions involving name, location, age, etc. which are needed for keeping track of who they are helping.
“This is going to be ongoing until we no longer have the food in our pantry,” she said.
Needless to say, donations are welcome. In addition, Witherspoon said they will deliver food to those who are disabled. For more information about deliver, call her at 541-709-7898. People who wish to make donations can email kassandratoombs@eocil.org.
The idea of operating a food pantry came when EOCIL was helping to do contact tracing for COVID-19. “We were learning that even though there are some services that were taking care of people in that manner, but some people didn’t have access to food,” she said. “We wanted to make sure that everyone had access to food.”
