It's Local: How Bernadette Irving Brought PORCH to Camillus, NY

Last summer, Bernadette Irving was feeling something a lot of us have felt: frustrated, a little helpless, and increasingly aware of how much need was sitting right under her nose. She has two sons, and she's watched their friends — kids in what's considered a “wealthier” school district outside Camillus, New York — go without more than people realized. For years, she'd donated to the local food pantry when she remembered to. Good intentions, she says now, that came and went.

Then came a season of real cuts to federal food assistance programs, and Bernadette found herself asking a different question. She'd written letters. She'd called her congressman. It all felt quiet — like shouting into a void. “Why am I relying on the federal government?” she remembers thinking. “What's going on in our own community? Why am I not more engaged?”

That's when she read a short article about PORCH Communities — she can't even remember if it was in a newspaper or a magazine — and something clicked. Here was a way to act on her own street, in her own neighborhood, without waiting on Washington. She filled out the response form. Within days, she'd heard from PORCH staff and was onboarding before she knew it. “They did not let me off the hook,” she laughs. “They gave me everything I needed to get started and helped me along the way.”

Getting Started

Bernadette had some advantages going in — her neighborhood is a tight-knit development of about 86 homes with an active HOA, and after 26 years there, she knows many in the neighborhood. She started with two close friends, then took the idea to her HOA board, who backed it immediately and sent word to every homeowner. She teased it first in the neighborhood newsletter — something new is coming, it read, something to do with your front porch — before following up with a full explanation by email. She talked it up on her daily dog walks, too. “My dog is very friendly, so neighbors recognize him and take a minute to chat,” she says.“

Eighteen households signed on right away. Today, the neighborhood is up to 28.

One of the biggest lessons came from Jodi Hunt, her local pantry partner, just a few miles away at St. Joseph's. Bernadette had donated there for years but had never actually visited — she didn't fully understand how the pantry worked, or who it served, until she sat down with the pantry director. “She has this ability to talk about what they do while stressing the dignity of the people she serves,” Bernadette says. The pantry serves the working poor, the disabled, the elderly, those who have fallen on hard times — neighbors, not strangers. This kind of partnership was new to the community, so it came together gradually, one step at a time — two organizations figuring out together how something that hadn't been done here before could actually work. That shared journey has grown into one of the things Bernadette values most about the partnership.

Each month, Bernadette shares the pantry's current list of highest-need items with her neighbors — so what shows up at the drop-off isn't guesswork, it's exactly what St. Joseph's needs to serve the community.

A Moment That Stuck

Ask Bernadette what's kept her going, and she doesn't hesitate. In January, her collection team walked into the pantry’s drop-off area — usually containing several bags of food — and found it completely empty. By the time the PORCH monthly donation was unloaded, the area was overflowing with generosity. She snapped a before-and-after photo that day. “When I looked at that picture,” she says, “I thought — this is cool. This is really working.”

The encouragement hasn't stopped. Her neighbors stop her often as she’s out walking her dog to say thank you. Some who travel for the winter even arrange to have donations shipped to her directly, so they don't miss a month. “That gives me chills,” she says. “We are really on the right path here.”

The Faces of Hunger Are Closer Than You Think

Bernadette will be the first to say her neighborhood's buy-in has never been about convincing people to care — it's been about helping them see the problem clearly in the first place. “I just don't think people realize how bad it is,” she says. “It's not being covered in the papers and on social media enough.”

The faces of food insecurity aren't who most people picture. It's the working parents whose paycheck doesn't stretch to the end of the month. It's the retiree on a fixed income. It's the college student who can’t afford a meal plan. It's the neighbor who just got laid off. It’s the child who loses access to breakfast and lunch when school lets out for summer. According to the Food Bank of Central New York, which serves Onondaga County, 1 in 7 people — and 1 in 5 kids — in the region don't have safe, reliable access to nutritious food. That's the kid sitting two seats away from yours in the classroom.

For Bernadette, that gap in awareness is the real opportunity. Once people understand the scope of the need, the ask itself is easy — she's convinced of that. It's the “why” that has to land first.

What She'd Tell a Neighbor on the Fence

Bernadette is honest about the ask: getting started takes a little more time up front — a few hours a week while you're building momentum. But once it's running, she says, it's simple. Two emails. Put out the signs. Pick up, drop off. “It's very, very time limited,” she says — which tracks with what PORCH has always said: it takes as little as three hours a month to help stock a pantry's shelves and feed a community.

And when asked what she loves most about it, her answer needed no polishing:

“When I drop that food off, I know people are going to be able to eat tomorrow because of it. Neighbors helping neighbors — that's our mantra. It's direct. It's local. It could be the person you're walking down the street next to that you're helping, and you don't even know it.”

Could your neighborhood be next?

Interested in starting a PORCH in your community?