Demand brings a limit to hours, communities served

By Elizabeth Bailey

The Norfolk Food Pantry began as just that – a room stocked with cans of vegetables and jars of peanut butter donated by residents for anyone in need of help. Canned goods were there for the taking and no one tallied up the cost or number of patrons. Changes have come slowly but have sped up in recent years. Since 2022, the pantry has gone from serving seven families a week to as many as 80, serving up fresh produce from a new refrigerator and offering access to gently used clothes.

Overwhelmed by demand, the Norfolk Food Pantry will cut back the number of days it is open and limit access to residents of Norfolk, Colebrook, Winsted, Winchester, Canaan and Falls Village only. The pantry will be open on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. Friday, Oct. 10 is the last Friday it will be open. The service area changes go into effect Nov. 11.

Erick Olsen, pastor of Church of Christ Congregational, put it this way: “In order to do the best job we can, we had to reduce the community we serve. The decision was made out of necessity, but it was a heartbreak for a number of volunteers.”

Lynn Deasy, whose mother, Dorothy Satherlie, helped to start the pantry decades ago, is the pantry’s unpaid executive director and has worked with her staff of 14 volunteers to keep up with surging demand. Like others, she has been proud of the policy of serving anyone who came from any community and the pantry’s mission to treat every person with respect. In many cases, volunteers have forged a relationship with clients who come on a regular basis.

The Norfolk team began notifying the directors of food pantries in surrounding towns over the past several weeks. A volunteer has been stationed at a table outside the pantry doors to communicate the policy change to clients and to provide information about other pantries for those who will no longer be served in Norfolk. The pantry had already limited families to one visit a week and restricted certain items, such as condiments.

“Every single town has a food pantry,” said Deasy, noting that many have more resources than Norfolk’s relatively small operation. Friendly Hands Food Bank in Torrington now feeds 11,000 people per month, up from 300 in 2020 and recently opened a new building with the help of a $2 million grant from the state. Large-scale pantries may not supply the personal attention that attracted families from other towns to Norfolk, but Deasy added, “We are not going to let anyone go hungry.”

Deasy and Olsen agree that the need for supplemental food for families in Norfolk, Winsted, Canaan and Colebrook will continue to grow. “On some level I hope for a time when the Norfolk Food Pantry won’t have to exist at all,” mused Olsen.

That time is not now. With a combination of soaring grocery prices (up 29 percent from 2020 to 2024), increased rents (up 4.5 percent last year), looming cuts to federal food assistance programs and a softening economy, Olsen and Deasy still anticipate a high demand for Norfolk’s Food Pantry. “We did not want to deplete our financial resources, not to mention our volunteers. We may be small, but we will remain mighty,” said Olsen.