PHOTOS BY ERIC SUCAR staff The Calico Cat Cupboard and Thrift Shop distributes food and clothing and household items to those in need with the help of volunteers from local churches who organize and staff the thrift shop. Blink and you just might miss the small storefront that identifies the Calico Cat Cupboard and Thrift Shop in Middletown.

Tucked in next to the Christ Episcopal Church of Middletown on Kings Highway, the tidy little brick building is home to a thrift shop and a food pantry that serves up to 48 families on the fourth Tuesday of every month.

"The name 'The Calico Cat Cupboard' came from a fair that the Christ Church put on, the Calico Cat Fair," explained cupboard Coordinator Janice Liebenow. "It is cute, but sometimes people think we are a cat shelter or something."

Definitely not a cat shelter, the cupboard provides food, clothing, toiletries and cleaning supplies as well as household items and small kitchen appliances to low-income families in the Bayshore area.

Liebenow explained that the cupboard is open on Wednesdays from 9:30 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. and that there is an evening pantry open on the fourth Tuesday of the month, available for qualifying patrons.

"For single parents, they have to work at least 20 hours a week in order to qualify for our pantry," Liebenow said. "For intact parents, they have to work at least 40 hours a week."

According to Liebenow, the thrift shop and the pantry are organized and run by members of various churches in the area and is a faithbased organization, but does not proselytize to the patrons.

"All of the proceeds from the thrift shop go back into the pantry and the community," Liebenow said. "We take donations and are very picky about what we take. We do not accept clothing that we wouldn't wear ourselves."

Liebenow said that with a referral from a social worker, low-income families could collect food, clothing and bedding from the cupboard.

"We mainly service the Bayshore area, but I have had people from Ocean County call me asking if they could send people here because we are the only food pantry that hands out clothing as well," Liebenow said. "People don't realize it, but we accept clean bed linens, tablecloths, pots and pans, flatware, glassware, and small kitchen appliances so we can hand them out to people who desperately need them."

Liebenow said that the cupboard does not accept furniture because it has no room to store large items.

Robbie Freund is the pantry coordinator and bags groceries on Tuesday nights. She has been involved with the pantry for 15 years.

"I stock the pantry with food that has been collected through various drives and donations," she said. "My postman told me about the letter carriers food drive, so I got involved here with the pantry and that was 15 years ago."

According to the women, needy families can come to the pantry twice a month for food and once a month for clothing.

"We set up the clothing like a store so people feel like they are in a store and can find things easily," Liebenow said.

Liebenow, who has been involved with the cupboard for the past 19 years, estimated that the pantry has about 50 volunteers.

Part of her involvement with the cupboard is as organizer for the back-to-school outreach program that collects gently used clothing for children returning to school this fall.

"We are looking for clothing donations, but we also receive Payless Shoes gift certificates or the like so people can buy socks as well," she said. "This program really is the miracle of the loaves and the fishes. Right from its start, stuff came in for this drive."

According to Liebenow, clients of the cupboard who participate all year have to have so many visits to the pantry within the past three years.

"Fortunately, we have been able to help everybody that comes to us for this program," she said.

Liebenow said that the Calico Cat Cupboard is a United Way official agency and that referrals come from the Visiting Nurse Association of Central New Jersey, churches and social services agencies.

Through the thrift shop, located on the other side of the pantry wall, the volunteers of the Calico Cat Cupboard are able to dispense emergency assistance money to pantry clients.

"The proceeds from the thrift shop are given back to the community," Liebenow said. "We sell jewelry, clothing and household items and with some of that money we are able to pay bills for some of our clients. The money given to them goes right to the origin of the bill, so sometimes we can pay someone's utility bill or even their mortgage payment for that month."

As for the pantry and thrift shop, those have been in existence for at least the past 20 years, Liebenow said.

"The Church of Christ allows us to operate here rent-free, we pay for utilities, but this is an effort of a group from the church and the community," she said. "It really is a beautiful effort from the community because we have all denominations working together. We do not have a synagogue currently, but we are open to any faith-based organization getting involved."

Liebenow said that the volunteers go to great lengths to maintain clients' dignity.

"We try to maintain their dignity by presenting a neat and clean store," she said.

As for her 19 years of service with the organization, Liebenow said,

"I just feel it is as we get older, we get more spiritual, kind of like what can I do to make this a better place?" she explained. "Our family of volunteers is a support network of friendship. We grieve together, we laugh together, we are a family. Getting involved with people in need and doing some good feels right to me."