Running a nonprofit is no easy feat.

Take the Palmerton Food Pantry for example. Overseen by the Christian Action Council of Palmerton Area Churches, the pantry serves around 140 households in the area. That figure has declined in recent years, but with a team of less than 20, distributing the food, raising donations and housing the pantry requires aid from the entire Palmerton community.

And then there’s the regulatory hoops the pantry has to jump through. It has two different distribution days: one for food bought with state funding and another for food purchased using federal money. Pantry officials are often told to track the demographics of people who frequent it every month, and senior residents have to prove their need before getting assistance.

“It makes absolutely no sense to me,” said Ken Kaiser, who heads up the pantry alongside Barb Brader.

“I’m sure it does to someone — not me.”

There is a bright side. The pantry’s current home — St. John’s Lutheran Church on Fireline Road — houses it free of charge. And there are people in Palmerton who are always willing to contribute to its mission. Just earlier this week, members from the Palmerton High School Leo Club pushed carts alongside the borough’s Halloween parade procession, collecting food donations for the pantry.

“As far as this,” Kaiser said motioning toward the pantry of canned and boxed food he was sitting in, “I love it. This is a giving community, my word.”

A native of the Bronx and Navy veteran, Kaiser joined the pantry as a volunteer in the late 2000s. But a year or two after signing up, Kaiser was asked to step up and run the pantry by its former coordinator, Charlie Silliman, whose failing health had forced him to retire.

Around that same time, Brader started giving time to the pantry. Her service dog, a 15-year-old pup named Buster who Brader took to nursing homes in the area, had passed, and her father, who Brader cared for, had also recently died. Looking for another way to occupy her time, Brader found a home in the Palmerton Food Pantry.

Silliman chose her, too, to step up and run the pantry.

Now, after nearly 10 years of serving side-by-side, Brader and Kaiser sit together like old friends. They laugh and joke with ease, having almost a decade of shared experiences to feed off. Their friendship is a reflection of the broader attitude shared by all the pantry’s volunteers, one of closeness, care and a genuine belief in its aim to feed families in the Palmerton School District who are in need.

“We have a group of people who are unbelievable,” Kaiser said. “Couldn’t do it without any of them.”

Brader agreed. “We have the best group,” she said.

And when the job feels too much to handle, Brader just thinks of the pantry’s clients. “The people we serve,” she said, “we have a lot of really nice people in this town.”

Every volunteer has his or her own reason for doing what they do, and for Kaiser, it’s a simple one.

“I’m sure somehow you could romanticize it like, ‘Oh my god, they’re helping people.’ It’s not that,” he said. “It makes you feel good. That’s it.”

With the holiday season just around the corner, the Palmerton Food Pantry is expecting an uptick in the number of households it serves. While monetary and food donations are always accepted, the pantry could also use soaps, shampoos, detergents, paper products and other necessities it can’t purchase with government funding.

Its doors are also open to potential volunteers, especially those who aren’t afraid of a little heavy lifting.

The Palmerton Food Pantry’s food distribution takes place on the fourth Friday of each month.