Aunt Bette’s Community Pantry, which recently relocated across the street, opened in August and serves an additional 103 families.

By Noor Adatia

On November 8, 2023

St. Philip’s School and Community Center in South Dallas unveiled its newly renovated food pantry during a rededication ceremony Tuesday. It will serve more families in the neighborhood.

The bigger pantry, located across the street from the old one, comes to the southern Dallas area as food prices continue to rise and more people are in need of nutrition, said Trisha Cunningham, CEO of North Texas Food Bank, which is a partner of the pantry.

“We’re seeing more people; even more so than [during] the pandemic today because we’re seeing the impact of inflation,” Cunningham said to a crowd of volunteers and funders in front of the new building. “We’re seeing so many people that are in need that have never been in need before.”

According to a recent report by the United States of Department of Agriculture, Texas is the second-hungriest state in the country, after California. Moreover, Dallas County has the fourth-highest number of food-insecure children in the nation, according to the NTFB.

The relocated Aunt Bette’s Community Pantry, named after the late Margaret Perot — a longtime advocate for ending hunger — will serve more food in and near South Dallas, which is a designated food desert. The pantry, which opened doors in August at 3203 Holmes St., was funded in part by a $2 million donation from the Perot family as well as a sizable contribution from Highland Park United Methodist Church.

The Rev. Paul Rasmussen, senior pastor at HPUMC, led an invocation to begin the ceremony that acknowledged the efforts of many organizations to make the pantry possible.

“This pantry is the result of a shared vision, not only to serve a warm meal, but also to end hunger and community and a testament to the great projects that can result from thoughtful, inspired collaboration,” he said.

Cunningham added that the interior of the new building resembles a grocery store in an effort to restore dignity to those who are vulnerable to hunger. During the pandemic, volunteers with the pantry would hand out food boxes from the back of their cars to residents.

“That’s not dignified; that’s not what the family wants,” she said. “As soon as we could, we wanted to get those lines out, and we wanted people back into these community pantries.”

Now, neighbors are able to leave Aunt Bette’s pantry with a shopping cart filled to the brim with groceries every two weeks or as needed, said Terry Flowers, headmaster of St. Philip’s.

The updated pantry also includes a “nudge kitchen” — an idea taken from other pantries in the area — that will prepare dishes from vegetables and other ingredients that people often don’t take from the shelves to encourage people to incorporate them into their meals, Flowers said. Such food items include lentils, eggplant and butternut squash.

Flowers has been headmaster of the school and center since 1983 and has overseen the changes to the pantry over the years. The private Christian school first opened a small food pantry on its campus in 1988 to help families and children experiencing food insecurity. In 2015, the center opened a brick-and-mortar pantry store near the school, which served more than 600 families.

The new, client-choice pantry, formerly a church building, has since expanded to serve another ZIP code, for a total of three, as well as an additional 103 families.

More than nutrition

Providing residents with food does more than just supply them with critical nutrition, Flowers said. It also helps people retain employment by allowing them to more affordably commute to work.

“A food pantry also prevents a child at school from taking someone’s lunch out of their lunch kit, not to eat for lunch, but for dinner,” he said. “The impact of food pantry goes well beyond just the meal itself.”

A pantry also helps lower crime, pay utility bills and assists students with their academic performance at school, he said. A full belly allows students to concentrate better in class.

“This small area can be transformed, people who live can continue to live here with dignity … and they can do it within a mile and half from downtown Dallas,” Flowers said.

South Dallas resident Mary Bennett said the new pantry so far has exposed her to a lot of different, nutritious foods as well as several gardening items, including flower and vegetable seeds.

“I’ve been able to get things here that I wouldn’t have been able to get otherwise,” she said.

Bennett, 84, said the pantry helps her feel dignified, as she is able to make choices about what goes in her cart.

“One of the things I love about it is … you get your shopping cart and you go around and you select what you would like to have,” she said.

This piece was republished from The Dallas Morning News.