One by one, a steady stream of people a solemn young mother with her little boy in tow; a tired, sweet-faced older woman with her white-haired husband; a thin, worn-out looking middle-aged man step up to the counter at the Emergency Food Bank housed at Trinity Lutheran Church, Lehighton. Each leaves toting a brown paper grocery bag filled with canned vegetables and pasta, cereal, and other basic foods, enough for nine meals each.

Sixty-two families come and go in one 45-minute span.It's Tuesday afternoon, and food bank volunteers are busy filling bags when a white pickup truck pulls up out front, loaded with hundreds of pounds of boxes, bags and cans of food donated by the employees of Blue Mountain Health System."We at the Blue Mountain Health System did this as an effort of the Caring Employee Committee," says BMHS spokeswoman Lisa Johnson. "It's basically an employee recognition group, but it also does events that boost morale and foster awareness. In May, we had National Hospital, Nurses and Nursing Home weeks. We always ask so much of our community, to help support us, and we wanted to give back that support to help our community. We try to give back in different ways, and this is just one of them."The group collected a total of about 1,000 pounds of food donated by employees at both the Gnaden Huetten and Palmerton Hospital sites and at satellite locations. The donations were split between the boroughs."I just think it was a fantastic idea," says assistant pharmacy director Holly Bones, who heads the Caring Employee Committee."We wanted to do something a little different for Hospital Week that gave back to the community, especially those who are in need, instead of focusing on ourselves," she says.The need is there, and growing, says food bank coordinator Carolyn Long. She and her husband, Ron, manage the food bank, which serves those living within the Lehighton Area School District.The food bank serves an average of 450 families (1,100 people) a month, Long says."It just goes up all the time."As soon as Gnaden Huetten Hospital housekeeping manager Doreen LaRizzio and Bones, assisted by Steve Palmieri, director of Nutrition Services for BMHS, and Gnaden Huetten maintenance supervisor Todd Young, push the dolly loaded with food into the storeroom, volunteers fly into a flurry of activity, unloading the food, sorting and boxing it at lightning speed.Long shows visitors stacks and boxes of food in the large storeroom."Corn, green beans, peas, pork and beans, mac and cheese, tuna, Spam, spaghetti, cereal and potatoes," she says.She describes how the food is doled out, saying that the amounts given depend on the size of the family. Each person gets enough for nine meals, once a month. The food bank is open Tuesdays from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m.The storeroom is full, at least for now, largely due to the recent donation drive by the U.S. Post Office, which added more than 12,000 pounds of food, she says. The Lehighton Area High School Class of 2012 donated food, and the bank also gets food from the Feed America program, from a Stroudsburg bakery and other sources.How does the Blue Mountain Health System donation help?"Greatly," Long says. "Every little bit helps, and this is a tremendous amount."