(gentle music) - Holiday meals are really important.
It's not just about nourishing our bodies, but it's about bringing the family together and the food is the centerpiece.
Our focus is on helping our neighbors in need meet a very basic need, which is food.
And we do that by leveraging resources in the community to address the needs of our neighbors, and that includes getting to the root causes of hunger.
We work in a variety of ways to make food more accessible to our neighbors.
We have food pantries that are open on evenings and weekends.
We have locker systems where folks can place orders and they can pick that food up whenever they need it.
And then we've increased our inventory and made it a more diverse inventory to make sure we're getting the types of food that our neighbors want to eat as well.
The holiday time is particularly difficult for our families and so that's where we see more folks coming in for our assistance.
- Gonna drive through, and they're gonna drive on both sides.
- [Charlese] You have the added cost of utilities, you have the rising prices of food and many of the holidays revolve around food.
So it's not just getting your normal weekly groceries it's providing larger meals and bringing in more of your family for those.
We're able to provide food assistance through our network of partners and that network consists of all kinds of organizations.
- Hi, I'm Renee Conte.
I'm the case manager here at Rainbow Kitchen.
Rainbow Kitchen is an anti-hunger organization in Homestead and we receive food and goods from the Greater Pittsburgh Community Food Bank.
We have a monthly food pantry where we service over 500 households.
We also have a daily soup kitchen.
We have Van, he's our cook here and on a daily basis, he cooks around 200 meals.
Today he had chili over rice and a vegetable.
Every day it's something different.
It's a hot meal.
We have anything from soup, hot sandwiches hamburgers, tacos, all kinds of delicious meals.
During the holidays, we see an influx of individuals families that need help because they wanna sit down they wanna have a nice meal with their families and that shouldn't be restricted because of finances.
There's people that come to our pantry for the first time they're literally crying because they're so happy that they have somewhere to get help.
- If you're somebody who needs food please do not hesitate to reach out to us.
We are here to serve you.
There is no judgment.
There is no shame in asking for help.
That is what we're here for as a community and that's what we do, we uplift one another.
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