Fr. Rick’s Story

“In my four years at the parish, it was a privilege to be with people. Wonderful, wonderful things happened. So that’s how I became the founder of the food pantry. I had some ideas just from walking around town and listening to people: listening to the elderly to the lonely and to those that were fearful and hungry. People living in box cars and in tents. And I thought of ways to distribute food to them.” 

From 1974 to about 1978, Fr. Frederick Pennett Jr., otherwise known as “Fr. Rick,” served at what was then St. John’s Parish.  When he arrived, his pastor suggested he take a month to six weeks to walk around town and figure out what he might do to help. 

“I’d walk up Main Street as far as Center Street and then walk back. Sometimes I’d take more than an hour just to meet people on the street. At that time, Concord was a much different city. It was also a time when they were letting people out of the state hospital with nowhere to go.” 

“All these poor people were out on the street, some of them having been in the hospital for 20, 30 years, probably more. They were so lost. I got to meet some of them and find out their needs.”

In his walks about town, Fr. Rick met many transient people living in railroad box cars. Concord is at the intersection of several main roads which brought people to town – many of whom had little food or a place to stay. 

It was also during this time that he went to the Kennedy Apartments to bring communion to folks that couldn’t come to church. “I realized that so many of those people had two outstanding emotions: one was loneliness. The other was fear.”

To combat the loneliness, Fr. Rick asked volunteers from the church’s Food Pantry to see if the women in the Kennedy Apartments would bake cakes – food pantry volunteers would bring all the ingredients necessary to these women and then give the cakes away.  This was the beginning of it all.

From here, Fr. Rick says, “It all kind of got mixed together.”

It wasn’t a clear path but one thing led to another which led to the creation of the food pantry.

“I realized that so many of those people had two outstanding emotions: one was loneliness. The other was fear.”

As people began to know him from his walks in town, business owners offered money to buy freezers to hold the cakes and other perishables that were beginning to come in. The room off the kitchen in the rectory was the place where food and donations such as diapers and personal hygiene products were being held.

There were 10 to 12 parishioners involved in this new ministry. Word got around and people in need were lining up inside the rectory’s stairway to receive services. “We knew this wasn’t going to work as it was the rectory and having them wait in the food pantry also wasn’t going to work as there was no room, it was cold and there was no privacy.”

So work began to move the food pantry into the bottom floor of the convent where the Sisters were living. Eventually the food pantry needed more space and moved to the house where it currently resides. What began as the St. Vincent De-Paul Food Pantry transitioned to Christ the King Food Pantry.

It’s amazing how God works. Why Fr. Rick? Maybe because he understands what it’s like to be in need.

“At one point, my family was really hurting. The St. Vincent de Paul Society from the Cathedral came and offered us help. My mother wouldn’t accept the help but they were there for us; that impressed me. I was educated by the Vincentian priests and I had a great love for St. Vincent.” 

“So why did I do this work? It’s the Gospel - it’s why we help others.”

In many ways, it has all come full circle. What Fr. Rick began, Fr. Rich is continuing: providing nourishment, community, and dignity to those in need.