The Jubilee Cupboard
The Jubilee Cupboard provides emergency food assistance and is open Thursday from 9 AM until noon. The location is next door to Trinity Church directly behind the Ware Fire Station. Proof of residence and a Social Security number are required. Please phone 413-967-3274.
Donations of non-perishable food are welcomed by The Jubilee Cupboard during open hours only. Food may also be donated to The Jubilee Cupboard at a drop off box at the Big Y Supermarket in Ware. As of December 2008 clothing donations will no longer be accepted.
View a photo album of the Ware Postal Carriers's Food Drive on May 13th, 2006.
On November 10th, 2005 the Ware River News printed an editorial on The Jubilee Cupboard. The editor Tim Kane gave permission to have this article appear on this web page.
This Week’s Opinion: Trinity Episcopal Church’s Jubilee Cupboard is a true Godsend, and the best way for you to help the ever-growing numbers it serves is by giving after the holidays subside - not just before and during.
Ever since 1983, Ware’s sole food and clothing pantry has been a good barometer of our local economy and for those falling through the cracks. This year, the gap in our social services safety net is growing wider, and it’s up to all of us to help our neighbors in need.
This year, Trinity Episcopal Church’s Jubilee Cupboard located on Park Street in Ware will see more seniors and families with hungry stomachs and cold bodies. And it’s not just unemployment figures skewing the numbers this time. Far too many families face incredibly high health insurance premiums, whether they are employed or on state coffers. Add to that the oil crisis our country now faces, and the potential exists for the Cupboard to serve more individuals than ever before in its history.
In her third year as Cupboard coordinator following a decade of volunteerism there, Cheryl Vaugh predicts the harsh reality of winter will be enhanced by the sheer economy of scale. She is blessed to have Douglas Lappin and Amy Wilhite to help her with donation pick-ups and sorting. Many folks served by the pantry have no one to help them, and often they are forced to choose between keeping their children warm or filling their bellies. Seniors, too, are faced with paying for heat over medication refills. That’s how it is for some folks. And that’s why we all need to help.
The Jubilee Cupboard is a success, judging by the overwhelming numbers it now serves, but staff knows there are many who either don’t accept the help, or don’t know it’s available. There has been a sharp increase in the number of those families and individuals seeking help from the Cupboard over the last three years. Vaugh estimates the increase at 30 percent. On Monday, about 3,400 folks (including returning families) were registered as receiving help this year, up from 3,200 last December, and it’s not even winter yet. There’s 124 new families signed up, compared with 81 families in 2003. Today, the Cupboard serves between 200 and 300 local families, a telltale sign that the need is not just for frail seniors and homeless anymore.
Working families who make too much to qualify for food stamps, but still find it hard to make ends meet, are the newest anomaly at the Cupboard. And Thanksgiving and Christmas weeks are traditionally the busiest times at the center, and thus a period when folks give the most non-perishable foodstuffs. But the off-season presents many challenges, too. Vaugh said awareness wanes after the holidays when the cold of winter settles in. And parents become unnerved during summer when their kids leave food subsidy programs in the local schools and they are faced with feeding them three meals a day. Hunger has no seasons.
According to Lappin, what the Cupboard really needs is peanut butter, macaroni and cheese, cereal and soup. It accepts pretty much any non-perishable food item. Please be sure to check expiration dates on all food, and capitalize on retail store’s special offers.
The Cupboard is open Thursday from 10 a.m. to noon, and can be reached at 967-3274. The Big Y is also a hot spot for Cupboard donations with its popular donation box, and A&W Trucking and Trash is sponsoring a town-wide food drive this month on the church’s behalf by accepting donations at 87 West Main St., Ware, or by calling 277-9809. The Ware Town Hall will also gladly accept donations for the pantry.
The Trinity Episcopal Church’s Jubilee Cupboard is the only emergency food pantry of its kind in Ware, but it does the work of three pantries given the amount of traffic it receives. You feel good when you give. While filling your own cupboard, why not help fill the Jubilee Cupboard as well?