HEROES OF COVID-19
Rising to Meet Pandemic Challenges
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nformed by the Mission and Core Values of Holy Family University, many members of the University community have met the challenges that have resulted from the pandemic to help others in need. Utilizing what they have learned from their experiences at the University, these individuals have answered the call of service represented by the University’s motto, teneor votis (“I am bound by my responsibilities”) to support their communities during these incredibly difficult times.
New Ways to Serve Communities in Need Before the pandemic, Feast of Justice in Mayfair was already one of Philadelphia’s largest food pantries. But since March 2020, the organization has faced the upsurge in demand for food head on, increasing the number of people it serves across 10 Northeast Philadelphia ZIP codes by 275 percent with the assistance of 138 volunteers, including 96 who had started volunteering after the start of the pandemic. By early December, Feast of Justice had distributed over a million pounds of food in response to COVID-19 food shortages. Mike McNulty-Bobholz, MEd ’11, associate vice president of Student Life, is the current president of the Feast of Justice Board of Directors and is in his fourth year on the Board. Over the past several months, he has seen the distribution operations of Feast of Justice radically change in response to strict safety precautions. “Before COVID, our guests would come into our pantry and they would select the food items as if they were shopping,” McNulty-Bobholz explains. “Once COVID happened, we had to convert to a touchless protocol.” The organization has adopted a system in which guests now pick up boxes of food items from the building with minimal contact.
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WINTER 2021
