Winter and word of mouth are bringing in more users to Wiscasset Church of the Nazarene’s food pantry, the church’s senior pastor Wally Staples said.

Some of those coming in for food are past donors to the pantry, Staples said on Feb. 11.

So far, the church at 255 Gardiner Road (Route 27) and the pantry’s contributors, have been able to provide enough food to meet the increased count in users. But Staples said it’s an important time to donate because the number continues to increase.

He estimated that use of the pantry is up 25 percent from six months ago. One week in 2015, 99 people used the pantry, which is open Sundays at the church from 12:30 p.m. to 1 p.m., Staples said. Donations of both food and money to buy food help stock the pantry. In the growing season, Morris Farm, down Route 27 from the church, and other farms and individuals contribute produce.

"The Morris Farm just this past year decided to officially build food security into its mission, but providing community members with honest, nutritious food as well as the knowledge and tools to produce their own is something we've been focused on for the last 20 years,” the Morris Farm Trust’s program coordinator John Affleck writes in a Feb. 12 email response to the Wiscasset Newspaper.

“This past year, our community gardeners, led by board member Del Ketcham, grew and delivered weekly loads of produce to local churches and families, and our master gardener volunteers donated their entire crop — 1,271 pounds of fresh veggies — to food pantries in the area,” Affleck’s email continues. “The fact is that there are plenty of folks out there struggling daily just to get their basic needs met, and we feel it's important to be part of the solution.”

Staples said sometimes people leave produce anonymously at the church.

“I don’t even know who they are,” he said. “We’ll get there and it’ll be on the doorstep, and it’s fresh.

“It’s very gratifying to think that people are willing to share,” said Staples, who ran a food ministry in Lewiston for about nine years with wife Sharon Staples. She now volunteers for the Wiscasset church’s pantry.

While use of the Nazarene church’s food pantry is on the rise, use of the food pantry at another Wiscasset church, St. Philip’s Episcopal Church on Hodge Street, has been up and down, with weekly sign-ins ranging from the twenties to the forties, St. Philip’s member Gretchen Burleigh-Johnson states in a Feb. 12 email. The Nazarene church pantry’s schedule may be more conducive, she writes.

“We’re glad that they are able to answer people’s needs, too.”

Users of St. Philip’s Help Yourself Shelf need to be at the church on Thursdays at 5 p.m., Burleigh-Johnson said.

For more on Wiscasset Church of the Nazarene’s food pantry, call Staples at 207 504-2488; to donate money toward the pantry, send a check to Wiscasset Nazarene Outreach, 117 Dana Mill Road, Woolwich, ME 04579, Staples said.

For more on St. Philip’s Help Yourself Shelf, call the church at 207-882-7184.