The drive-up food distribution hosted by Allegheny Valley Association of Churches (AVAC) will remain at the Pittsburgh Mills mall through the end of the year, officials announced.
It’s a shift from original plans to return to the empty Rite Aid building along Corbet Street in Tarentum.
“Part of it is because of the pandemic,” said Karen Snair, AVAC executive director.
The church co-op runs the mass food distribution, which doles out meat, milk and veggies to more than 500 families a month.
“Rather than having folks coming face-to-face, they just get to stay in their car and drive through,” Snair said.
The giveaways will be 4:30 to 6 p.m. on these Tuesdays: Oct. 12, Nov. 9 and Dec. 14.
Participants typically receive three boxes of food that include fresh produce, frozen meat and shelf-stable items like pasta and peanut butter. Food is provided by the Greater Pittsburgh Community Food Bank.
The distribution is open to anyone, but registration is requested at Pittsburghfoodbank.org/get-help/drive-up/
Location changes to JCPenney lot
For anyone who has participated, the location will change slightly. For the fall months, boxes will be given out in the JCPenney parking lot rather than in the back of the mall near the movie theater.
Snair said the pandemic has caused numbers to surge.
“We’re definitely up from when we were doing person-to-person pick-ups,” she said. “We’ve been averaging over 500 families a month.”
Snair said her group received permission from Abundant Joy Fellowship, owners of the vacant Tarentum building, to host the food distribution there. She’s not sure if the program will return to the borough in January, adding that it likely will depend on covid-19 counts locally.
Rite Aid donated the building, a historic opera house, to Abundant Joy Fellowship after the store closed in March 2018.