As a startling number of students visit school pantries in Mercer County, Pennsylvania, schools in Northeast Ohio are seeing their own spikes in demand. 

“Kids come into the buildings and just mention things to teachers and staff members about different food they don’t have at home, or they’re worried they won’t have food for dinner,” said Shaina Shardy, school and family community liaison at Warren City School District. “It’s very, very hard to see, but I know here, when the kids are here, we’re able to feed them and send them home with food.”

Many districts have a food pantry inside one, or several, of their school buildings. Second Harvest Food Bank of the Mahoning Valley says it currently operates at about three dozen school sites serving hundreds of students, and United Way of Youngstown and the Mahoning Valley has Care Closets in 29 schools. There is some overlap between the two groups.

Each pantry can have immense impact: across all Youngstown City School District buildings, care closets were visited more than 54,000 times in the 2024-2025 school year, according to Public Affairs Director Stacy Quinones. Shardy’s team at Willard PK-8 distributes 300 pantry bags to students each week, and Mindy DePietro, a counselor at Boardman Center Intermediate School, told 21 News her school's pantry gets about 500-600 visits per month. 

One of the characteristics that sets these resources apart is their emphasis on kid-friendly foods. That includes snacks and microwaveable meals that students can safely make on their  own after they get home from school.

More and more, though, DePietro said, students come to pantries in search of assistance for their entire families. 

“Some of them have, like, a little list from a parent or a guardian of the kind of things that they're looking for. … They're taking way and way more things than they ever used to do,” DePietro said. 

Chris Chrestay, a social worker at Youngstown Rayen Early College High School told 21 News YCSD doesn’t screen students for need before allowing them to access the care closet, and said it has become “normal” for them to drop by, lessening the stigma against seeking help. 

Students at YREC can also volunteer at the care closet — taking inventory, stocking shelves, organizing the space and more. 

"Not only does it service the kids and their families and provide necessary things for them, but it's also teaching them to give back, because they are earning community service hours,” Chrestay said. “It's teaching them how to run a business, because we set it up kind of like a store. It's teaching them to respect all of their peers.”

Districts’ efforts often go beyond delivering food. As temperatures drop, many provide children with warm coats, hats, gloves and scarves, plus other clothing items. Toiletries, toilet paper and paper towels can also be found in some pantries, including at Willard PK-8. 

“Pretty much any child’s need is here, in this room,” Shardy said.

Since October 2025, WCSD has also been taking that room out into the community, with the launch of its mobile food pantry. 

“It has helped a huge amount of people so far,” Shardy said, adding that it is “not just for students, but it’s also for our neighborhoods within the district.”