The vibes have changed at a long-standing food pantry in Newark’s West Ward.
Gone are the long lines that stretched down the block from a small single-story building on South 18th Street on the third Wednesday of each month, when hundreds of residents would wait patiently in all kinds of weather for prepacked bags of groceries.
The take-it-or-leave-it, grab-bag approach has been replaced with brightly lit aisles of fresh produce, frozen foods, and staples like rice and beans. The United Community Corporation, a Newark-based nonprofit, transformed the space to operate more like a grocery store, allowing people to pick and choose their own food and other products free of charge…