Helping the city’s needy
With the coming of fall and the upcoming holiday season, which seems to start with Halloween for some people, we will note the uptick of events and collections that will aid the city’s needy by collecting foodstuffs. For more years than any of us can remember, the West Haven Emergency Assistance Taskforce (WHEAT) has been helping the city’s needy families with food and other programs.
Begun as an outreach of the West Haven Clergy Association in the 1980s, WHEAT was a program to aid those caught in the throes of the recession of the time and a rise of homeless, under-employed, and destitute. All the churches in the city banded together to collect canned goods and non-perishable food for distribution.
Quickly, the collections expanded into holiday or Christmas toy collections and other events for those who might not be able to celebrate the holidays. The major focus points of the collections were, of course, Thanksgiving and Christmas, but continued well beyond the time the turkeys were eaten and the holly taken down.
WHEAT eventually became an agency that needed its own offices (originally on Campbell Avenue), and then moved to its present location on Washington Avenue, formerly an auto repair and sale location. While it began as an offshoot of the Clergy Association and had a longstanding affiliation with the clergy, it has become a citizen-run agency and part of a larger statewide outreach to the poor and needy.
West Haven people took the food and toy collections seriously from the beginning, and now it is seldom we see a civic or social event – especially as the leaves begin to turn – that does not include a collection for WHEAT. And while the major collections seem to happen in the latter part of the year near the holidays, the work goes on throughout the year.
The ebb and flow of those using the agency’s programs mirror the health of the economy, and the last four years have been especially difficult. Inflation, the loss of jobs to other parts of the country or other countries, and the longstanding effects of the Covid-19 pandemic shutdown have contributed to the numbers seeking help.
Beyond WHEAT, the city’s annual Community Thanksgiving Dinner, sponsored by the churches in the city and hosted by First Congregational Church, will seek donations of food and money for its events. Originally conceived as a way for the shut-ins and elderly to have dinner with others, that dinner morphed into an outreach not only to those who could make the dinner, but those who needed dinners sent to their homes.
Many people who do not have a place to go for Thanksgiving, or who just want to be with members of the community take part.
Over the next several weeks notices in the publications and elsewhere will seek help in collecting food and contributions to help those in need – Neighbor helping Neighbor was the original mantra of WHEAT. We urge those who can help to do so. Knowing you are helping people in your own community is truly an important obligation of us all.
Those seeking to help WHEAT can call (203) 931-9877 or go to the website: [email protected].
Information about the Community Thanksgiving Dinner will be in the coming issues of this publication and elsewhere.
West Haven is a generous city. Nowhere is that more evident in the ways we help those in need.