ITP’s journey from a two-shelf pantry to a multifaceted operation serving Indy’s east side came less than 12 months after opening, to meet a growing need. We caught up with them to see how they are handling their first holiday season as a pantry, and how they’re ensuring no family goes without food this holiday season.

 

To open a food pantry in Indianapolis today means stepping into a time of record need throughout the city. Even if you understand many families are in critical need of food assistance, the reality often becomes even more harsh when you’re tasked with actually meeting that need. 

Iglesia Tierra Prometida is a church on Indy’s east side, and one of many organizations now handling record levels of hunger at a whirlwind pace. If a neighbor walks into ITP’s food pantry today, they’ll be met with items like fresh produce, refrigerated products, pet food and healthy ingredients for cooking. 

ITP is serving it all up, despite having been in operation as a pantry for less than a full calendar year. 

“We don’t want to just treat neighbors as a number. We want to treat them as family, as a community that we are,” said Elizabeth Vasquez, who is the community outreach director and a pantry coordinator at ITP.       

The initial vision to launch the food pantry at ITP came in 2023, at the request of Pastor Angel Morrel. He had experienced food insecurity as a young child, according to Vasquez, and wanted to leverage his church’s resources to provide food for people who needed it most. Pastor Morrel shared his vision with Vasquez and many others, who then worked fast to get products on the shelves onsite at ITP.

By January 2024, ITP had incorporated a food pantry that was open to everyone in the community — not just churchgoers. While organizers envisioned a place for families to access nutritious food at zero cost, they were left stunned and saddened by the growing number of people making use of the pantry at every distribution. 

“We started off with volunteers bringing in cans, but we knew that wasn’t enough,” Vasquez said. 

The realities ITP neighbors face directly mirror what Gleaners knows about hunger in Indiana: Neighbors who turn to the ITP food pantry for assistance are largely employed people, who are working hard to provide meals for others in their home. However, low wages and high rent make it increasingly difficult to do so.  

Additionally, many ITP neighbors do not qualify for SNAP benefits because their salaries are too high. 

“It’s hardworking Americans making what you would think is decent money, but in reality it’s not. Because of the rent, the high cost of food, of the high prices and gas. When they try to apply for any food assistance, it’s like they’re in the middle. They can’t qualify to get any SNAP benefits because they make too much money, but they don’t make enough money to even go purchase their own meals. So they’re in a situation where you’re stuck,” Vasquez said. 

Seeing the real need, pantry coordinators worked fast to expand upon their initial vision. The ITP pantry would need to be much larger and offer more food if they were going to really make a dent in hunger. 

“We had to start throwing down rooms, because the need was growing and growing. It wouldn’t stop,” Vasquez said. 

Coordinators soon reached out to Gleaners for assistance and support as part of their expansion process. Gleaners remains committed to providing coaching, resources and fresh produce for pantries like ITP.

Thanks to the partnership with Gleaners, and careful, ongoing attention to community needs, hundreds of people now get food at ITP. The pantry, which started off serving 45 families, is now capable of serving hundreds of households in a single distribution. 

In mid-December, the pantry served an unfortunate record of 317 households in just three hours. While pantry coordinators hate seeing the high level of need, they are glad to have provided a space where people may access healthy ingredients and fresh produce. 

“We’re actually paying attention. Researching, culturally, what type of foods they eat. And we’re just so blessed and happy to be part of Gleaners, because Gleaners provides so much fresh produce. Fruits, vegetables, spices. Things that we can provide to our community,” Vasquez said. 

Paying attention to the community would prove crucial as the levels of need reached its highest point, during what for many is the hardest part of the year: the holiday season. 

Hope for the holidays at ITP

Families facing food insecurity during the holiday season must navigate several challenges. 

Winter Break can mean the end of school-provided food for 4 in 10 American children, according to the National Center for Education Statistics. Higher heat bills, seasonal job losses, and potential wear on transportation from severe weather, coupled with the added pressure of providing toys for children during the holidays, leaves many families worn thin. 

“Especially in the winter, that’s when people are struggling the most. I had one family, they came in and it was so sad. Literally, they had no heater, because they could not pay their light bill,” Vasquez said. 

In addition to the work providing seasonal holiday food, ITP felt providing toys was an area they could further give back. It was yet another first for ITP, and a need they felt well situated to meet.

But an anxious thought punctuated their toy drive planning. If the levels of need at the toy drive matched those they saw every week in the food pantry, ITP might not have enough toys for every child in the line. 

“We were worried. Would we be able to provide for everyone?” Vasquez said.

During that planning process, ITP’s ongoing efforts to meet the needs of the community during the holidays were featured on Fox59’s annual Pack the Pantries special. That story caught the attention of Wild Ridge Lawn & Landscape in Indianapolis. When the company asked the church how to help, ITP told them of their need for more toys. 

Without hesitating, the company quickly spearheaded an outstanding effort to obtain more than 700 toys for children.

“They saw our interview and they wanted to help us. And they were so amazing. They went ahead and sponsored us, and provided so many gifts, which was the happiest, that was the cherry on the top,” Vasquez said. 

With additional donations courtesy of Toys for Tots Indy, there were enough toys for every child who eventually came through the line. Vasquez helped organize that toy drive and said many neighbors thanked them for providing the toys. 

“They just kept saying, ‘Thank you so much. My child is so happy. Thank you. You guys were able to make our holiday special.’ Some of them said the toys that they got, that’s the only thing they’re receiving this year. I’ve had people that are on the verge of literally being in the streets and they were just so happy,” Vasquez said. 

ITP brought the same perspective to the toy drive as they do to the food pantry, maintaining a dedication to offering children a variety of choices of what toys they wanted to take home. At ITP, they know offering neighbors a wide choice in products can prove essential to their overall health and quality of life. 

“We don’t want to just hand out stuff that they’re not going to use. That defeats the purpose of us even being here. We want to provide meals that they’re going to consume, just like the toys. We want to make them have a special holiday, so we want to make sure that they get the choice,” Vasquez said. 

Following a successful first toy drive, ITP is already looking ahead to what is sure to be a busy 2025. Plans to add another distribution day are in the works, and they are looking into providing more education resources for community members. 

Pantry coordinators are also brainstorming ways to preserve food, after a refrigerator at ITP broke and impacted their ability to distribute essential fresh produce. 

“We wish we could provide more, but we would need a bigger freezer and just stuff like that. That’s something in our heart. That’s a project that we want to take on. We want to do a walk-in freezer or a walk-in fridge, just so we’re able to provide more,” Vasquez said. 

Meeting the needs of the community, in times of great need such as these, is never easy. For ITP, filling stomachs and hearts, is all in a year’s work. 

“We truly feel we’re in this battle against hunger together,” Vasquez said. 

Iglesia Tierra Prometida is now actively seeking more volunteers to help with distributions throughout 2025. If you would like to give back and sign up, click here.