On a humid, overcast day in April, approximately 50 people are lined up along the side of a public library branch. Each week at 11:30am on their assigned days, the same handful of people lines up here, toting their empty wire carts and catching up with each other. Tomorrow Wednesday's cast of North Philadelphia residents will be lined up and Thursday another. In turn, they descend into Philabundance's Community Food Center basement location, into a makeshift grocery store of donated food that provides them with crucial food assistance and hunger relief.

The Community Food Center is one of Philabundance's direct service programs. The center is a food pantry founded in 2009 in partnership with the Mayor's Office of Community Service and Saint Joseph's University.

Because the pantry is choice-model, participants can chose from available items rather than receive predetermined items. Each week approximately 1500 people receive some 20,000 pounds of donated food from the Community Food Center alone.

Still the need in the center's vicinity is overwhelming, and the center is not currently accepting new registrants. [Note: Philabundance can refer those in need to other programs.]

To learn more about the Community Food Center or other food assistance programs, visit http://www.philabundance.org/programs/programs-2/community-food-center/