Julie Zeller, 12, left, Olivia Berger, 12, center, and Alison Beck, 11, from the Danbury United Jewish Center, deliver food to the Daily Bread food pantry at St. James Episcopal Church in Danbury.

DANBURY -- Like the U.S. Cavalry in old western movies, they arrived in the nick of time.

Until Wednesday, the shelves in the Daily Bread ecumenical food pantry at St. James' Episcopal Church on West Street were almost empty.

"I remember a couple of years ago when we nearly had to close because we were so short of supplies," said pantry coordinator Debbie Christiana. "Fortunately, some people came to the rescue and we stayed open."

It was the same Wednesday, when students from the United Jewish Center religious school showed up with more than 3,700 pounds of supplies the congregation had collected in a food drive for the pantry during the High Holy Days.

"We like to think of it as a mitzvah, or a good deed," said Laura Morris, the center's office manager. "We hope it will also encourage other organizations in the community to run food drives for the pantry, because it's certainly one of the most popular pantries in the city."

The United Jewish Center's drive lasted almost a month, during which the school's sixth- and seventh-graders decorated and distributed hundreds of bags to members of the congregation to fill with nonperishable foods and items such as personal toiletries.

Wednesday's delivery included everything from cereals to soup, and pasta to canned meats, and was dropped off at the pantry by a truck donated by Marcus Dairy.

Shelves at the Daily Bread food pantry at St. James Episcopal Church were nearly empty before Wednesday’s delivery of 3,700 pounds of food from members of the United Jewish Center in Danbury.

Students formed a human conveyor belt to unload the donations before other volunteers came in to stack the shelves.

"It's nice to know we're helping people," said 11-year-old Stephanie Pagelson, a seventh-grader who helped gather some of the donations. "It's important we should all help each other."

Christiana, who has worked with the pantry since 1985, couldn't have been more pleased.

"It's a wonderful thing that they do for us each year," she said. "Other organizations and individuals send us donations of food and money, but we spend it very quickly. Food is very expensive."

Christiana, who lives in New Milford, noted while the pantry collected about $14,000 last year, it spent $17,000 and had to dip into its reserves.

In addition, Christiana said because of the economy, the number of people using the pantry has been on the increase.

"A few years ago, we were giving out 80 bags of food a week," said Christiana. "Now we're sometimes up to between 100 and 120.

The pantry, which has never closed since its inception in 1984, also provides special holiday baskets with turkeys for Thanksgiving and Christmas.

"People are already signing up for Thanksgiving," said Christiana. "I think we're going to have a lot of people wanting turkeys this year."

How to help:

• The pantry is located behind the church, off Terrace Place.
• To make donations, call (203) 748-3561.
• Hours: The pantry is open Monday and Friday between 10 and 11:30 a.m. Clients are allowed one visit per month and should provide an ID. No proof of income is required.
• Food needed: Nonperishable goods only. Clients are each given a bag containing items such as cereal, pasta, canned vegetables and fruit, peanut butter, pork and beans, tuna, soup, and macaroni and cheese.