Phoenixville Area Community Services

Phoenixville Area Community Service or PACS was founded 35 years ago by a group of Clergy was Phoenixville. Although PACS is Federal and State funded, it was these clergymen who came together because of a need. The need was the people in their community who were hungry, sick, and poor. The People that PACS serves are the "working poor." All of these people have jobs, but they still do not always make enough money to fulfill basic human needs such as food and housing. The Mission of PACS is to “Connect People in the Phoenixville area with community resources and emergency assistance.” PACS has many programs including Community Information, Referral, Advocacy for clients, Food, Rental Assistance, Fuel Assistance, and Utility Assistance. They "Offer support, aid, and hope for residents in our community” through connecting people to the appropriate resources to meet their needs, providing emergency food, housing, utilities, and medical services, assisting people to achieve economic self-sufficiency, and linking community assets with community needs. Their 2 main function are emergency care (housing, utilities) and ongoing food. The food is provided by the state and provided once a month to each client. Although Federally and State funded, a lot of the money PACS relies on comes from donations. "Without PACS, local governments would need to provide services at taxpayer expense. Organizations like PACS are more efficient and economical.” Here are Some interesting statistics to help you understand the productiveness of this organization.
- An average of 150 households receive food assistance each month.
- Most people don’t receive food regularly, only occasionally, when in extreme need.
- In the last year, PACS provided $90,747 in food, 84% was donated by the community and $35,472 for emergency housing, heat, electricity, and medicine.
- PACS connected more than 5,000 people with other aid organizations last year.

PACS relies heavily on volunteers and has only 6 paid staff members, 4 with bachelors degrees and 2 with Masters degrees. When hiring PACS would be looking for a degree or experience in social work. When hiring volunteers they look for resourcefulness. Volunteers are needed to do secretarial work, publicity, and work in the food pantry.

This information is from pacsphx.org and from my interview with Sonja Patno. Sonja is a Junior at Valley Forge Christian College studying Social Work. She got involved volunteering with PACS her freshman year and is now fulfilling her internship there.