Little Library and Food Pantry: Portsmouth, Ohio Outreach
Little Library and Food Pantry
Portsmouth, Ohio Outreach
Scioto County has a poverty rate (2021) of 26.5 percent which ranks it at the fourth highest in the state; some statistics list children in Scioto county as living in poverty at the rate of almost 40 percent.
The Portsmouth, Ohio United Church of God congregation is setting up an outreach program in the neighborhood near their church building. Two mini libraries will be installed outside of the building. These will provide access to books in one mini library: both traditional reading material and Church literature; and then non-perishable food pantry items in the other mini library. The books will give people in the neighborhood access to reading material and Church literature - both of which are important to people’s lives. The food items will assist in a small way with the food insecurity that many people feel in the neighborhood in which our church building is located.