Darra Slagle stacked towers of cardboard boxes in the basement of Stratford Street United Church in West Roxbury on Oct. 7. Outside, it was a quiet Friday morning — but Slagle, executive director of Rose’s Bounty food pantry, and her team of volunteers worked tirelessly packing up nonperishable food items. The bimonthly open food pantry was the next day, and even with dedicated volunteers, there was still preparation to do.

Slagle was recognized earlier this month during a Boston City Council meeting for her dedication and hard work for Rose’s Bounty. Since its founding in 2015, the organization now has six different programs and serves over 2,000 members of the community facing food insecurity every month. 

“Our church had done some serious soul-searching,” said Judy Jose-Roddy, former director and present chair of the board of directors for Rose’s Bounty. “We decided to become a mission-based church.”  

Rose’s Bounty is named after Rose Arntz, a congregant of the church who passed away in 2014. Arntz is remembered setting up coffee and food for the church every Sunday after service. After her passing, her son donated a memorial gift of $5,000 to the Stratford Street United Church. The organization was established in April 2015, after a nearby food pantry located in a health care facility closed down.

“We thought that was a sign,” Slagle said. “We decided food would be our mission because we were always about food after church.”

After Slagle became director of the nonprofit organization, she implemented several programs aimed to serve those who suffer from food insecurity in silence. There is an open food pantry on the second Saturday and third Friday of every month, open to people living in West Roxbury, Mattapan, Jamaica Plain, Roslindale and Hyde Park. The number of families showing up to these open pantries averages about 240 on Saturdays and between 125 and 150 on Fridays, Slagle said.

Along with the open food pantries is the Chittick Elementary program. About 50 children attending the Chittick Elementary School take home bags of food put together by Rose’s Bounty for their families every week. Pop-up pantries, smaller versions of the open food pantry, are also set up weekly outside the school for low-income families, and help about 10 families each week. But Slagle said she knows there are even more families that are not being reached.

“That’s one of those challenges,” Slagle said. “How do you get the food to the people that really need it?”

Rose’s Bounty is tackling that problem through two of its other programs. By working with other organizations like the Department of Veterans Affairs as well as Ethos, some homebound citizens and disabled or homeless veterans receive weekly delivered meals from Rose’s Bounty.

The organization relies heavily on volunteers coming in every week to help set up open pantries and organize food shipments. About 400 people have signed up to volunteer in the past, and about 20 volunteers return each week. Others come when they can, Slagle said, and she appreciates all of them.

“I have one volunteer, Mary, she’s here every Thursday and Friday. Marsha has been with us since the beginning. I have Susan, who started coming in at the beginning of the pandemic, and she’s here every Thursday and Friday,” Slagle said. “These ladies, they all have their own gifts and abilities, and we come to rely on some of those.”

Susan Powers began volunteering at Rose’s Bounty in 2017, after many years of volunteering at a local domestic violence organization.

“I have always had some kind of volunteer component in my life, and I was looking for the next opportunity,” she said.  “It’s been amazing to watch the organization grow.”

Pre-pandemic, open food pantries at Rose’s Bounty were set up so that people were guided through the pantry by volunteers, who showed them different food options they could take home.  That connection between volunteers and the community they help is something that drew Powers in.

“Clients would come in and we would shop with them, and I just loved doing that. You know, ‘Do you want this? Do you want that?’” she said. “The concept of having them choose what they want — it was incredible.”

The busiest season for Rose’s Bounty is fast approaching as the days get shorter and the air gets colder. Slagle said she is already planning for November and December, when people want to have enough food to feed everybody for the holidays. Before COVID-19, the pantry’s busiest month was October.

“Interestingly, when I don’t see as many families as I know I should, [is] the January, February, March time frame,” Slagle said. “Not only are the bills coming in from the holidays, but they’re coming in for heating and electricity, which are much higher than the rest of the year.”

The work Rose’s Bounty does throughout the year will soon pick up again. Slagle has hopes to get more volunteers for this fall.

“I guess I just would love to see more volunteers, particularly on Thursdays when we get our truck,” she said. 

Rose’s Bounty is a distribution arm of the Greater Boston Food Bank, and a significant portion of the food provided to Rose’s Bounty is from that organization. During the height of the pandemic, an increased need caused the volume of deliveries to increase so much that a loading entry was installed on the side of the church, to aid in unloading. 

“It’s much easier than it used to be to unload a truck, but we still need help with that,” Slagle said. “Many hands make light work.”