30 / matters magazine / fall 2017 Food- Pantry Force A former Wall Streeter and a local food pantry cope with a growing need BY CHRIS COSTANZO Kate Cahill brings her Wall Street expertise to the food pantry at Our Lady of Sorrows. T hanksgiving came quick- ly for Kate Cahill in 2013, the year she began heading up the food pan- try at Our Lady of Sor- rows on Prospect Street in South Orange. Though stocked with plenty of turkeys, Cahill and her co-head at the time were unprepared for the 300 or so people who flooded the pantry’s doors that morning. While a few dozen $10 grocery-store gift cards were enough to save that particular day, the turkey rush brought into focus the need to whip the pantry into shape to meet sharply increased demand for emergen- cy food throughout the community. “It was an eye-opener,” Cahill says. Recently retired from her job as an asset manager on Wall Street, Cahill had the time and energy to devote to rejuvenating the pantry, as well as a desire to become more active in the community after an all-consuming ca- reer. “You can read all you want about things that interest you, but it’s not a good substitute for getting involved,” she says. Sincethedaytheturkeysranout,Ca- hill has made numerous changes aimed at ensuring the tiny pantry, housed in a former coat closet, can keep up with rising demand. Initially a quiet effort to distribute food to a dozen or so parishioner families in temporary need, the 30-year-old pantry now serves up to 135 house- holds every week, marshal- ing the resources of a large web of volunteers, local gardens, area businesses, and community service organizations. The job taps into some of the skills Cahill drew upon during her Wall Street career, as well as plenty of others, including logistics, inventory management, technology, marketing and fundraising. “It’s not what I ever expected,” Cahill says. “I came into it thinking it was going to be a series of transactions, but it’s so much more than that.” Under Cahill’s lead, patrons now sign up ahead of time for holiday dis- tributions, eliminating shortages of big-ticket items such as turkeys and hams. They also go through a simple application process and get added to a database, which lets the team bet- ter track overall demand and identify trends. Perhaps the biggest change has been an effort to standardize the weekly distributions, which both makes it easier for donors to know what to donate and helps the clients Larry Hirsch and Destinee Harris help distribute food.