First Presbyterian Church of Woodbury Heights
First Presbyterian Church of Woodbury Heights
Church News Article – August 2021
Great Woodbury Cooperative Ministry Food Pantry
Winter, Spring, Summer and Fall, The First Presbyterian Church of Woodbury Heights has been sending both monetary and food donations to the Greater Woodbury Cooperative Ministries (GWCM) food pantry for more than a decade. We have especially been very active supporting the GWCM while our community has been under various pandemic restrictions since March of 2020. To date, we have contributed monetarily through the Presbyterian Women’s Association since 2010 totaling $2,900, plus in-kind food donations. This year alone, we’ve collected and donated 1,900 food items!
Even though our church has been active with monetary donations since 2010, we were not officially affiliated with GWCM. In February 2021, our church became, basically, a member church and part of the 12 faith communities involved in outreach with GWCM. This simply means that we will have representatives who will become more involved with the outreach programs of GWCM, primarily the food pantry. Special thanks go out to Kathy Pedicone, who has been actively working weekly at the food pantry for the past many years. She and her husband, John Pedicone, have been gathering our church food donations and transporting them to the pantry, along with picking up fresh produce weekly from Verchio’s Produce. We are also grateful to both Kathy and Joyce Woodrow who are our church representatives who meet bi-monthly with the board at the GWCM.
Here’s a little history of the GWCM: The GWCM was formed in 1997 by eight local churches/faith communities. Their aim was to cooperate in local social ministries to meet identified needs in the community. The food pantry program was an outgrowth of separate efforts by each church and a particular effort by the Colonial Manor United Methodist Church to provide emergency food aid to community families on the weekend when both governmental and other voluntary organizations are closed. GWCM opened a second food pantry in 2002, located in the center of Woodbury on North Broad Street on the Friends Meeting property (in the SODAT building) and distributed food on Tuesday and Thursday mornings. This location became quite restricted as the number of families served increased and GWCM was forced to find a new location. God provided the solution when the Seventh Day Adventist Church at Barber and Evergreen Avenues offered their ground floor for use as an outreach effort. As of 2007, this has been the main food pantry and includes office space, a packing room, a large room for client wait area and specialty food offerings.
It takes a village to keep this food pantry up and running. Please continue to support this very worthwhile and local ministry by your food donations. Black bins are located on the bottom shelf in the narthex area for collections. Thank you for serving your church and community!
Current Organizations we support:
Cathedral Kitchen
Food Pantry
Seeds of Hope
Our Prayer Quilt Ministry
The Prayer Quilt Ministry continues to receive messages from those who have received prayer quilts.
Many of the letters share the joy that the recipients feel when receiving one of the quilts, and others share what they feel knowing that our church family loves them.
At times it is difficult to produce the quilts as quickly as needed.
The quilters originally met once a month, but changed to every two weeks and then to once a week.
Please consider joining us. We meet most Thursdays, from 10 a.m. to noon.
You do not need to commit to helping out every week -- just let us know when you can join us. The joy that comes from participating in this ministry will fill your heart.
Call Nancy Zane for information via the church office at (856) 845-0139. Keep tying those knots. They represent prayers.