A Gloucester County man is on a mission to feed as many people in his community as he can with his food pantry.

What started as a little food pantry on Barney Corrigan’s front lawn now covers rooms in his house.

“I made it. I struck it out front. I put a Facebook post up about it and I started getting donations,” Corrigan says.

He says that when his catering business took a hit during the pandemic, he saw a need in his Westville community for food. And this is how Barney’s Place began.

Nine months later, the food pantry is helping hundreds of families a month, with donations pouring in – so many donations that a truck was donated to help the cause. It is a truck that Corrigan says he hopes will be the key to the next step in helping others. To be able to expand, the pantry is in need of a more permanent location. In order to raise that kind of money, Corrigan is spending 22 hours a day inside the truck, with people pledging donations by the hour and the day.

“I’ve been here since Sunday and I’ll stay here until we have a building,” Corrigan says. “People are donating by the hour or by the day, starting at 10 cents, so $1 a day. And I’m here for 30 days, so that’s $30. We have a GoFundMe set up and Venmo on our website too.”

Corrigan says that a permanent home for the food pantry could help change many lives.

“We refuse so much stuff. People want to give milk and eggs, and we have a college fridge in the garage. And we’ve turned down refrigeration because we just don’t have the room for it. But if we have a place where we can store everything and it’s organized, it would be amazing,” he says.

Barney’s Place helps about 300 families every other week. The pantry is always accepting donations.