West Farms church hopes to help hundreds this holiday season with food pantry

The holidays are fast approaching and a West Farms church is working to make sure that Bronx families have everything they need to get into the spirit of the season.

News 12 Staff

Oct 22, 2019, 11:07 AM

Updated 1,641 days ago

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The holidays are fast approaching and a West Farms church is working to make sure that Bronx families have everything they need to get into the spirit of the season.
The shelves of the Flow Kingdom Ministries food pantry are mostly empty right now, but church leaders are hoping to change that in the months to come.

"We found that it was important not to just bring a good message, but give a good message. We believe that people are in need right now, and we want to be suppliers of that. We want to be able to be there for that," says Rev. Dr. Israel Pena, senior pastor.

This congregation has a history of helping its community. Each of the last three years, members have handed out more than 100 turkeys ahead of Thanksgiving. This year they're hoping to gift 500 during the giveaway scheduled for Nov. 24.
"Many times we give away the turkeys, and I giveaway 125 turkeys and there's literally another 100 people on the line that may not get turkeys, so we need several thousands of dollars to make this effort happen, and we want to go above the turkeys as well, we want to make sure people have the essentials," says Pastor Louie Negron.

Come December, the Flow Kingdom Ministries will host another annual event that grows each year, bringing toys to neighborhood children. The event makes sure more than 500 children have presents to open on Christmas morning.

"It's incredible when you walk down the street and you see the kids that you've impacted and you see the people in the buildings come by, and you know, tell you how much the services that we've done for them actually mean to them, so it's very, very rewarding," says Brian Arocho, assistant pastor.

Church leaders say they are able to give back during the season of giving thanks to the generosity of congregants and Bronx residents.


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