Parish Resource Center

For almost 50 years, Parish Resource Center (PRC) has helped nonprofits and faith communities in Lancaster County better utilize their resources and fulfill their missions. These days, our work is all about identifying direct service gaps in our community, creating programs that fill those gaps, and equipping local volunteers to have the greatest possible impact on their community.

Our primary initiatives this year have been addressing food insecurity and a local shortage of immigration legal services: 

• Take-Home Totes are easily-carried bags of shelf-stable food, packed in our offices and distributed to partner locations (such as hospitals, social work offices, and churches so they can be shared when a client receiving other services expresses need. Since launching in March we've distributed 750 Totes and partner requests are outstripping our capacity.
• The Lancaster Community Meal Program (LCMP) is a network of churches and organizations that provides three meals per day, every day, in Lancaster City, totaling over 200,000 meals per year. In addition to directly serving 1,500 meals per month at two of these meal sites, PRC maintains the website for this group, convenes conversations between meal partners, procures food for meal sites that need it (1,100 additional meals per month), and manage donations to eliminate food waste. Changes to federal assistance programs has resulted in the greatest demand we've seen since starting this work.
• The Pennsylvania Immigration Advocacy Clinic (PIAC) is a weekly, free legal clinic providing immigration legal services that have never been available in Lancaster and in partnership with a comprehensive network for maximum stability and impact. All people seeking progress on their immigration legal status are provided translation services and free access to an attorney to file the appropriate paperwork such that immigrants can legally continue their jobs and/or receive vital services while their case goes to court. We have advanced the cases of 230 clients in the first nine months of operation. 

And we support all of this work by cultivating and training a dedicated pool of 250+ volunteers. In addition to training our own volunteers directly, we partner with organizations like the Lancaster County Community Foundation and Central Pennsylvania Food Bank to offer subsidized capacity building courses to nonprofits and faith communities tirelessly working to serve their most vulnerable neighbors.

Our vision for the future of south central Pennsylvania is this: That an interconnected and mutually supportive network of community benefit organizations would weave a water-tight social safety net, lift up volunteers and funders to give their gifts where they would have the most impact, and offer dignity and abundance to all people as they have need. And we believe that our community already has the skills, resources, and will to make this a reality.