Port Washington Food Pantry Launches March Drive as Demand Surges 35%

The St. Peter of Alcantara Food Pantry will launch a monthlong “Spring Into Action” nonperishable food drive in March as demand for food assistance continues to rise in Port Washington, according to pantry officials.

The drive comes as the pantry now serves about 160 families locally, representing a 35% increase from the 115 families it assisted when Roxana Sienko became director of Parish Social Ministry a year ago.

“A lot of people don’t associate Port Washington with food insecurity,” Sienko said. “But it’s here, and it’s growing.”

Volunteer Kathy Shanahan spearheaded the campaign by partnering with seven local businesses that will serve as drop-off sites for nonperishable goods throughout March, according to pantry officials. Each business will host a collection bin for donated items.

Shanahan said she intentionally began with a smaller group of partners to build momentum and community awareness. The spring campaign builds on the parish’s first organized food drive held last September at the Stop & Shop on Shore Road, where volunteers from Paul D. Schreiber High School’s Key Club helped collect thousands of pounds of food and more than $600 in cash donations for pantry families.

“One of our hopes is that by partnering with local businesses, more people will learn who we are and what we do,” Shanahan said. “People are often surprised to hear how many families we serve.”

The drive includes a digital component featuring QR codes on flyers displayed at each location, linking to the pantry’s Amazon wish list and allowing residents to purchase needed items online for direct shipment to the pantry.

“Even if someone walks into a store without a donation in hand, they can scan the code and contribute right from their phone,” Shanahan said.

Information about the drive and the QR code will also be shared on the pantry’s Facebook page, St. Peter Alcantara Food Pantry, according to organizers.

Sienko noted that many residents are unaware that Port Washington has three separate food pantries that function independently and serve different populations. She added that families who use the church’s food pantry do not receive services from other pantries in the community.

The pantry operates independently from other food assistance programs in the community, according to officials.

St. Peter of Alcantara Church, which operates the food pantry, has roots stretching back more than a century in Port Washington. The Parish of St. Peter of Alcantara was formally established in 1900 and incorporated in 1902, according to church history.

Port Washington, known in its early colonial days as Cow Neck Peninsula and later Cow Bay Village, had no Catholic church of its own in the mid-19th century. Local Catholics traveled to Flushing to attend Mass until the establishment of St. Mary’s in Roslyn in 1871.

By the 1890s, when the town’s population was about 800, fewer than 100 residents were Catholic, and Mass was celebrated in private homes and Liberty Hall on Carlton Avenue, according to historical records. In 1898, a small chapel was built on Sandy Hollow Road.

Two years later, Bishop Charles McDonnell of Brooklyn determined the growing Catholic population could sustain its own parish. The parish’s namesake honored benefactor Peter C. Gallagher, and legend holds that wealthy attorney and U.S. Rep. William Bourke Cockran donated the land and $50,000 for the church’s construction on the condition it resemble a castle from his boyhood in Ireland.

Sienko said the spring drive’s partnership with local businesses represents more than convenience and reflects a broader community effort.

“It’s fantastic,” she said.