Food Center Remains Open During COVID-19

The COVID-19 pandemic has forced schools, churches, and many businesses to shut down. Fortunately, our organization is considered an “Essential Critical Infrastructure” and will remain open for our community. The Food Center will be operating under normal hours, but now follows a “drive-thru” system in accordance with national guidelines.

Streams of Hope consistently serves 450+ community families each month, but the pandemic has hit many families very hard. There are new families who now rely on food pantries like ours to make it through this situation.This influx means your support is more crucial than ever to keep our Food Center well-stocked! Click here to give a secure online gift to support this resource for our neighbors.

In addition to food assistance, we are offering tutoring resources digitally and ‘to-go’ for elementary students. Our friends at Kentwood Community Church have been offering meals for children from Kids Food Basket and praying with families in our drive-thru service. We are also supporting our Dutton Pantry partner with supplies and food services to clients that need more assistance than this pantry can offer. Our leadership team has been attending the ENTF (Essential Needs Task Force) Food ACCESS weekly calls that include all of Kent County Food distribution sites, so that we can stay up-to-date on best practices and innovative safety measures.

Every single client that visits us expresses gratitude for the assistance. This week we have seen more clients that have just been laid off and have no income coming in. The future is uncertain… but we have been able to offer practical tools and hope to our neighborhood!

We have already been so blessed by the generosity of volunteers and partner organizations who have been helping us collect and distribute food at our center. But we need all hands on deck! Whether it’s a one-time donation or a recurring one, we are so grateful for your financial support. It’s during hard times like these when the value of community is indispensable. We leave you with this quote from Robert H. Schuller: “Tough times never last, but tough people do.”