The early summer heat was evident in the basement of St. John’s Episcopal Church in Palmerton.

It was midday Tuesday, and Paula Seiler still had much to do.

By 4:30 p.m., the space below St. John bustled with volunteers running the church’s weekly food giveaway. One sat at a table, taking orders from families. Two others were in the kitchen, plating spaghetti and applesauce into Styrofoam trays. Seiler acted as the go-between, walking from the basement’s entrance to its kitchen with bagged orders.

It’s a starkly different process from the one volunteers at St. John followed last year to carry out the church’s breakfast bunch program. Children used to be able to come in each morning to eat breakfast and hang out. They read stories. They played games.

But the coronavirus meant the program couldn’t go on as usual.

“We knew how hard it would be to keep the kids apart,” Seiler, who is also the secretary and sexton at St. John, said.

“Kids are devastated,” she added. “It started as a breakfast and grew into a family.”

The breakfast bunch at St. John began around four years ago. It’s led by volunteers, such as Seiler, who pick up the food from Second Harvest Food Bank, whip it up for program participants and assemble food bags each weekend.

Seiler estimated that last summer, the program served around 40 kids each day.

Some of the kids, Seiler said, don’t necessarily need the food. But the breakfast bunch does more than just fill bellies. “It’s a safety net,” Seiler said. “A lot of the children, I think, they really feel absolutely safe here.”

Unlike past programs where kids could come to the church, eat and play, in the era of social distancing, the breakfast bunch now looks like a Tuesday meal distribution.

Along with dinner, parents whose kids are in the program get a grocery-sized food bag to help get them through the week. Guests aren’t allowed in the basement. All of the volunteers wear masks.

On Tuesday, Thomas Noctor was one of them.

Noctor - whose wife, Shari Noctor, helped start the breakfast bunch and a similar program in Whitehall - has picked up nearly every food order from Second Harvest Food Bank and brought it to the Palmerton church. That food helps provide for the bunch, as well as St. John’s monthly community meal.

“People are hungry,” Noctor said, “and you can see it.”

While Noctor is not a member of St. John, he said Shari’s work keeps him involved in its cause to aid the hungry people of Palmerton. “You got to do something,” he said.

Noctor is retired. And with the pandemic still ongoing, he puts himself at risk with each drive into Whitehall or Palmerton to deliver food. He knows it would be easier - and maybe even safer - to just write a check.

“But you need somebody to drive the truck,” he said.

What the breakfast bunch might look like next year is a mystery. No one knows when the pandemic will end.

But Seiler said the volunteers at St. John have a reason to serve each summer.

“They (the kids) enjoy it, and I think that makes everybody come back,” she said. “It truly is a pleasure to do. … It’s just rewarding.”