Having outgrown its space in Darlington, the food pantry is expanding and moving to Wagner Road with an expected opening in June.
Professional contractors and volunteers work side by side drilling, sawing, pounding, digging, painting.
They’re renovating a former union hall in Center Township that will serve as good steward to the community.
But the building’s not the only thing being transformed. Ultimately, lives will be, too. For here, sustenance — both nutritional and spiritual — will be delivered to those in need.
A food pantry operated by nonprofit Faith Restorations Inc. is expanding and relocating from Darlington with an expected opening in June.
“It’s a blessing,” said Dave Brailey, executive director. “We keep saying it’s us that’s doing it, but it’s not. It’s God’s plan that we move in this direction. He’s been leading us the whole way.”
Brailey and his wife, Carol, started Faith Restorations in 2003, to help veterans.
“I felt I had to give back,” said Brailey, a Vietnam veteran who served with the 2nd Battalion, 4th Marine Division in the 1970s.
After tours of duty abroad, he started his own construction and home renovation company. But he also wanted to help his military brothers and sisters, many of whom, he said, had homes in disrepair and couldn’t afford to fix them.
“God was telling me we need to help veterans with repairs on their homes … We did about six to seven a year.”
Experienced volunteers help with projects including dry wall, electrical, flooring, plumbing, roof repairs, siding and heating, ventilation and air conditioning. The household’s income must be less than double federal poverty guidelines.
“Veterans have a hard time coming to anyone and asking for anything,” Brailey said. “They’re too proud. They think someone else needs it more.”
About 2½ years ago, the Braileys started a food pantry out of a remodeled garage at their home in Brighton Township — again to help veterans — but via word of mouth, low-income families started coming for food assistance, too.
“One incident in life and your world is changed,” said Janet Chalmers, board president, citing a job loss or major illness, for example — “so many situations where you’re not going to qualify for financial aid. Your union’s on strike and you just don’t have an income right now so you’re behind on your bills — or medical reasons. People just get behind. We’re there for those families, especially.”
Living paycheck to paycheck, many families don’t budget for unexpected emergencies or disasters, she said.
Pantry operations eventually moved from the garage to a bigger space in Darlington.
In the beginning, the pantry served about 20 families a week; today, 220 — from Darlington, Aliquippa, Bulger, Pa., in Washington County, even Ohio, said Chalmers. So many the pantry again ran out of space.
At approximately 6,400 square feet, the new site in a brick building at 186 Wagner Road that once served as headquarters for Plumbers and Steamfitters Local Union 47 is almost quadruple the size, Brailey said.
Plus, Center Township will be more centrally located enabling the pantry to reach more people, Chalmers said.
“If I feed a veteran, I might feed him once a month because he’ll be embarrassed or shameful to come back and do it again. It’s just who we are. We don’t ask for help much. I don’t ask for help. I think I can do it myself.”
Faith Restorations, however, has shown Brailey that help is a blessing. Because of generous benefactors and dedicated volunteers, “it’s working out beautifully.”
Take Beaver Falls businessman Demetrios Pappan, for example. He owns the Wagner Road building and donated space to Faith Restorations for the relocated food pantry. He's also helping to underwrite renovation costs.
"We do need people to step up," Pappan said. "Helping the needy, that's what we're doing; helping our Beaver County neighbors."
“He believes in giving back,” Chalmers said, especially when it comes to feeding the hungry.
Pappan and wife, Karen, are partners with FOCUS (Fellowship of Orthodox Christians United to Serve) in a project that provides backpacks filled with food to make sure children from low-income families get enough to eat on weekends.
The Pappans will use one room at the renovated site for the backpack program, Chalmers said.
Greater Pittsburgh Community Food Bank helped secure a grant from Wal-Mart for commercial-grade refrigerators and freezers and box truck.
Michele Cicconi of Beaver showed up to help one morning last week after reading a post on Facebook that Faith Restorations needs volunteers to scrape, paint, caulk, put up dry wall, move shelving.
Jason McMunn of Brighton Township, husband of Candice McMunn who is Faith Restorations’ vice president, volunteered to dig a 3-foot-deep plumbing trench.
“I’m helping the ministry because they helped my family out,” he said. “I lost my job … We decided to volunteer for Faith Restorations Inc. so we can go ahead and give back to the community. He (Brailey) gave so much to us.”
Such outpouring of help “is amazing,” said Chalmers, who gives close to 50 to 60 hours a month of her time to Faith Restorations while working full time and raising four children ages 2 to 10.
“It comes from a passion for serving the Lord,” she said. “People often comment on how happy I am. The reason that I’m always so happy is my focus is outward and not inward. It was important for me to volunteer my time and efforts to the community because, well, one, that’s what God told us to do — help those who can’t help themselves — but two, it’s important for me to let my kids see that as an example … It’s not about ‘what’s in it for me;’ it’s what is it that we can do to better the lives of others and glorify the Lord.”
Likewise, such altruism “comes from the heart of most of our volunteers,” Chalmers said. “That’s where they get their drive.”
Faith Restorations’ new food pantry will afford a shopping experience similar to a grocery store.
Many pantries, Chalmers said, give patrons a pre-packed bag of food and supplies.
Here, shoppers — who can come once a week on Tuesday or Thursday — are “in control of what they get,” she said, where they shop at shelves stocked with fresh fruits and vegetables, canned and dry goods, snacks, condiments and at refrigerators and freezers stocked with cheeses, yogurt and frozen items.
“We get it all. It really does feel like you’re in a grocery store,” she said.
The only item limited is meat: two meats per family per week.
The building will also include offices — several for the all-volunteer staff; two available for rent and one communal conference room. Rent money will be used to fund the pantry.
Volunteers are still needed to assist with site renovations, Brailey said, and to help with ongoing pantry operations — sorting food, stocking shelves, pickup and distribution.
Monetary donations are needed, too.
“The biggest thing now is getting the funds we need in order to get this thing off the ground,” Brailey said. “We still need a lot of materials and labor to get this thing going,” noting windows, doors, paint, brushes and rollers.
More information on Faith Restorations can be found on its website at faithrestorations.org or by calling 724-384-8926.
Those wishing to donate money can make a check payable to Faith Restorations Inc. and mail to 186 Wagner Road, Monaca, PA 15061.