LOCKPORT — The Brothers Keeper Outreach organization celebrates 30 years of service this Saturday, having joined forces with area churches to provide food, clothing, and other necessary items to people in Lockport.
There’ll be more to celebrate next week as Catholic Heart Workcamp will build a work counter in Brothers Keeper’s food pantry in First English Lutheran Church on Locust Street as part of a large-scale mission project in the city.
Alderwoman Margaret Lupo, a board member for Brothers Keeper, said all those helped by the food pantry and clothing closet are welcome to share cake and lemonade at the church at 12:30 p.m. on Saturday.
“It’s a celebration for the people we work with,” she said. “The beauty of the Brothers Keeper Outreach is many denominations working together.”
The organization operates on donations, said Kris Clark, a board member for Brothers Keeper. This includes partnerships with retailers and churches from Amherst, Lockport, and North Tonawanda.
Clark said that on Friday, the organization helped 17 families, serving 58 people. Brothers Keeper is open on the first and third Thursdays and Saturdays from 10 a.m. to noon.
Checking the pantry’s refrigerators, Clark found fresh spinach, carrots, eggs, and hot dogs in stock. Canned foods, cereal, pasta, baked items, deodorant, toothpaste and other hygiene products are also available, she said.
Lupo said she got involved with the charity during the COVID-19 outbreak in 2020.
“I went and said I wanted to help feed people,” she said. “This is just a wonderful opportunity for community service and the people who benefit.”
Lupo said Brothers Keeper will be the beneficiary of that same giving spirit from Catholic Heart Workcamp, based in Niagara Falls. Volunteers will clean out the clothing room at Brothers Keeper, Lupo said, and build the new counter.
“We need young people to help with heavy lifting,” she said.
According to manager Tim Kozyra, Catholic Heart Workcamp is a missionary organization that provides short-term mission trips for Catholic youth groups to perform service projects for those in need.
This year, Kozyra said 14 youth groups from Wisconsin, New Jersey, Michigan, and Massachusetts will bring nearly 400 volunteers to stay at a Niagara University dormitory next week to provide free services to properties in the city, Sanborn, Lewiston, Ransomville, and the Town of Niagara. Volunteers are ages 13 to 22 who raise funds to pay for participating in the workcamp, Kozyra said.
“They come wanting to change the world,” he said. “Because of the work they do for others, and the feelings they get, they come away absolutely changed themselves. We see kids constantly here because their parents told them to come, and they cry when they have to leave. It’s very touching.”
Workcamp projects target neighborhoods and individuals who often have no other means for addressing repairs and small building projects.
“The general rule is anyone who is disabled, elderly, a single mother, who is in need of help and financially unable to get it on their own — that is mostly who we focus on,” Kozyra said. “In Lockport, we picked out a small area that is more economically in need than others. We went around and knocked on doors and said, ‘We see your porch is in need. Can we replace a few boards and paint it?”
This helped workcamp leaders schedule projects Monday through Thursday on Walnut, Genesee, Lagrange, and Clinton streets, as well as Harvey Avenue, he said.
“We’re doing five wheelchair ramps, plus probably another five that we’re re-staining or doing repair work,” Kozyra said. “A lot of painting, and a lot of yard work.”
For more information, go to https://heartworkcamp.com/ .