Great Barrington and Sheffield — Dewey Hall will host a benefit for the local nonprofit People’s Pantry on Sunday, May 4, at 1 p.m.
The event will feature Troy Amuso, a master fine art conservator who is the founder and principal of Troy Fine Art Services, with locations in Sheffield, and Fairfield, Conn.
The event, inspired by the public television series “Antiques Roadshow,” will include a presentation by Amuso about the restoration potential of fine art oil paintings. Amuso will also conduct live evaluations of paintings submitted online for his review, as well as in-person reviews of five of the submitted paintings.
All proceeds from the event will go to The People’s Pantry.
According to its website, the organization’s mission is to help provide healthy foods to residents facing food insecurity. The People’s Pantry has operated since 1999 and is located at Saint James Place on Taconic Avenue in Great Barrington.
Organization Board President Laura Gratz told The Berkshire Edge that The People’s Pantry continues to face increasing challenges. “Like all nonprofits in the food insecurity world, we are all very worried about potential cutbacks to SNAP (Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program) benefits and potential cutbacks in federal USDA (United States Department of Agriculture) funds,” Gratz said. “We are also worried about the food from The Food Bank of Western Massachusetts becoming more scarce because we rely on that food bank. We’re worried about our residents and keeping them safe. Despite this, no one who comes to us is walking away empty-handed. We are feeding everyone that comes to our door, and those numbers continue to rise every month.”
According to statistics submitted by the organization, in 2024, volunteers at The People’s Pantry served an average of 650 residents living in 235 households from over 50 towns. Sixty percent of the residents served by the organization are from Great Barrington, and five percent of all Great Barrington households go weekly to The People’s Pantry, in line with the town’s four percent poverty level.
Also in 2024, The People’s Pantry was feeding more children than senior citizens. Gratz added that while the largest demographic the organization served in the past were seniors, the organization is now serving more young families than ever before. “In the past, we have seen the numbers of residents that we have served traditionally going up towards the fall and winter seasons, and then level out during the spring and summer,” Gratz said. “Now the numbers are not leveling out. We are seeing the number of people we serve rising. We believe nothing is secure, including funding, so we are preparing for the worst.”
Gratz said that, in many ways, it has already become a struggle for the organization to afford food. She cites the continuously rising prices of eggs as an example. “For the first time in our organization’s history, families are getting half a dozen eggs,” Gratz said. “We have a volunteer with a band saw who cuts big cartons in half. We have never done any of this before.”
Gratz said that the organization is more than happy Amuso is donating his time and resources for the benefit event. “It speaks a lot to his values,” Gratz said. “I even went to his studio, and his wife Denise gave me big bags of food for the pantry.”
Gratz added The People’s Pantry only serves residents from the Berkshire County area. “I think there is a misconception that the people we serve come from far and wide,” Gratz said. “People should know that all of them are local. These people all live right here in the county that we are all feeding. I have heard people say, ‘Oh, I saw a car with a New York license plate outside of the pantry.’ Well, I don’t know why that car was there, but again, we serve people with no questions asked.”
Visit The People’s Pantry’s website for more information about the organization and tickets for the May 4 event.
