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Volunteers bring part of the day's food donations of bread and fresh fruit into the Amherst Survival Center. At right, regulars gather by the door waiting for the center to open.

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Hope Noyes of Amherst, who has been coming to the Survival Center for 12 years, often helps sort clothes.

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Candy Derosia of Amherst reads labels to make sure the food she is getting does not contain wheat. With her is her daughter, Phoebe, 2, peering into bins filled with rice.

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Debbie Brennan of Belchertown is being served lunch on a recent Tuesday afternoon.

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CAROL LOLLIS

Sam Dreyfus, a Umass student who is a regular volunteer, serves lunch to David Bernstein of Belchertown.

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David Goodnow, also known as "Pops," blows bubbles in the lounge where he can often be found. Behind him, Brenda Galloway, who is an outreach enrollment specialist for state-funded health insurance, helps David Fagnant figure out whether certain medications are covered through MassHealth.

PHOTOS AND STORY BY CAROL LOLLIS

Even on this bitterly cold February morning they gather, slowly forming a line at the door of the Amherst Survival Center on North Pleasant Street. The group of about a dozen people consists mainly of Asians - men and women, and young children either being carried in slings or pushed in strollers. They speak no English.

When the doors open at 11, they head for the shelves to pick through household items and clothes before making their way to the room where heaps of bread, fresh fruit and vegetables are distributed.

The Survival Center serves a meal shortly after noon each day, a choice of at least five hot dishes, from vegetarian stir-fries to meat loaf, along with salad and dessert. But not to this crowd. "They never stay for lunch," says Cheryl Zoll, the center's director for the last 10 months, "and they never get boxes of food from the pantry." Zoll worries that the center is not fully meeting their needs. She has not been able to find a volunteer who can speak their language.

Those who do come to eat pile their plates high. Zoll says a wide variety of people - what she calls "the crossroads of Amherst" - show up for the meal. "Any group that is in Amherst is represented here," she says. "We never turn anyone away."

Sixty percent of those who use the Amherst Survival Center's services are from Amherst, says Zoll. The rest are from the neighboring towns. Less than 10 percent are homeless, she says. "Most of the consumers are low-income people barely making it, people who need a little extra to get by. We see a lot of families with young children, immigrants and migrant workers."

Along with lunch, the food pantry and free clothes, the center provides a doctor a few hours twice a week, an insurance consultant and free movies on Thursdays.

The only service that requires participants to meet income guidelines is the food pantry. That program allows individuals, once a month, to pick up boxes of food, each containing enough items to make nine meals. The cartons are loaded with canned goods, cereals and other packaged foods as well as meat, dairy and some fresh produce.

Though it's not enough to survive on, it fills in the cracks, says Zoll, making monthly checks last a little longer.

The center, funded by a patchwork of private and government grants and donations, is open Mondays, Tuesdays and Fridays from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. and Thursdays from 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. It is run by six full-time and part-time employees along with a slew of volunteers. While it caters to those struggling to get by, it is far from a gloomy place. The couches and chairs in the lounge are usually filled with people happily bantering with one another. There is an easy give-and-take among the paid employees, volunteers and consumers that helps the center run smoothly. "It's like 'Cheers,' " says Heather McCormack, the pantry coordinator. "Everyone knows your name." "It's home," kitchen coordinator Linda Brooks chimes in. "It's comfortable, magic happens here every day."