How Community Partnership struggled through state budget impasse, employees worked without pay
While waiting for Pennsylvania’s budget impasse to finally end Wednesday, Nov. 12, the nonprofit Community Partnership staffers stepped up and worked without pay in September to meet client needs.
The Franklin Township nonprofit, which has a mission to decrease poverty and make fresh, healthy food accessible to residents of Butler County — had its six employees either working without pay for a month or working a quarter of their usual full-time hours and collecting unemployment.
“We’re lucky because a lot of nonprofits had to close,” Community Partnership president Sandra Curry said. “But we made some personal sacrifices as a staff to make it work.”
Some employees worked their usual hours, but picked up other jobs on the evenings or weekends to cover their own bills, Curry said.
“Sometimes we were down to almost nothing, but we’re still here,” Curry said, citing the staff’s own resiliency.
Curry said the nonprofit, which operates the Butler County Food Bank, works with the Greater Pittsburgh Food Bank to host a drive-through distribution on the fourth Tuesday of each month at Lernerville Speedway in Buffalo Township, and a walk-up distribution on the fourth Tuesday of the month at the Butler City Farmers Market on South Chestnut Street.
She reported seeing “COVID-level” numbers of people needing help at the food distributions in late October.
Further, she said the nonprofit provided roughly six to eight extra emergency deliveries, a few more than the usual 10.
The emergency boxes are prepared with donated food or food leftover from the distributions.
Community Partnership is primarily funded through the Community Services Block Grant, which provides funding for agencies focused on directly addressing poverty and hunger in their areas.
“It was held up for July and August, so we went through two months without having reimbursement,” she said.
But the funding was granted an exception, later allowing the nonprofit to catch up in payments to staff and some vendors, Curry said.
“We’ve mostly caught up on our vendor payments,” she said. And the staff was paid back for September work.
Curry said the budget impasse also temporarily caused the organization to delay the start of new projects.
Until the state budget was passed Wednesday, Community Partnership was still missing funds from a $32,000 Urban Agriculture Infrastructure Grant, which was initially announced in March, as well as an $11,922 Fresh Food Financing Initiative grant, which was announced in May.
Community Partnership is hoping to use funds from the one grant to add new growing beds and build a production greenhouse at its building on Route 422 in Franklin Township, and the other grant to support its “Artisan Food Hub” initiative with demonstration gardens, a micro-storefront and an outdoor farmstand. The Urban Agriculture project is a joint venture with Totalus Cafe in Butler.
“We’ve just have had to put off starting those projects,” Curry said. “Those contracts started at the beginning of July. Obviously, we can't start without being able to bill for them. Everything from the state is reimbursement-based. You have to spend first and be reimbursed for it.”
Now, the nonprofit is prepared to wait just a little while longer, Curry said.
“Money doesn’t flow immediately,” she said. “I would expect at the beginning, (the state) will be overwhelmed.”
Because the project for the Urban Agriculture Infrastructure grant is based almost entirely outdoors, Curry said that the organization will have to hold off on starting it until mid-2026. However, the other project has both indoor and outdoor components.
“We can start the indoor purchasing before the end of the year,” Curry said. “The outdoor components will have to wait until the spring and early summer of 2026.”
According to Curry, the nonprofit didn’t pursue any loans during the wait.
Curry said that due to its small size, her organization is “relatively lucky” compared to some others in Pennsylvania, including Westmoreland Community Action, which had been forced to furlough 31 employees and cut hours for over 150 others.
“I hate to say being small kind of helps, but it does,” Curry said.
