About us
Solution-centered. Community-rooted. Faith-driven.
Common Ground Ministries is a solution-centered nonprofit providing comprehensive resources to improve the quality of life for individuals and families impacted by economic strain — with the aim of helping people become independent and whole.
Our mission
We feed families who are food-deprived and assist with housing, transportation, youth development, waste reduction, and mental-health resources across Luzerne, Carbon, and Monroe counties in Northeast Pennsylvania. Our approach is a “helps” mindset, committed to equity, inclusion, belonging, and diversity.
Feed a person a fish. Teach them to fish. Then train them to train others — until the helped become the helpers.
That cycle is the heart of everything we do. Groceries meet today’s need; the Garden of Eating teaches families to grow their own food; youth leadership programs raise up the next generation of helpers. Many of the young people we mentored years ago are adults now, serving their own communities.
Our story
Our founders have been on the front line of the fight against hunger since 1986, when Sherry Upton — then a culinary student in New York — began sharing food prepared in class with homeless neighbors around the Port Authority Bus Terminal. Everett founded the “We Can Help” soup kitchen in Newark in 1992, and together they served communities across New York City and New Jersey.
In 2003 they founded Common Ground Ministries in Elizabeth, New Jersey — a food pantry, youth outreach, and senior assistance ministry whose youth programs recorded zero pregnancies, zero dropouts, and zero incarcerations, and which opened ShopRite’s first Kids’ Café. In 2007 the ministry moved to Northeast Pennsylvania and grew into a food-distribution outlet serving hundreds of households every month.
After being forced to relocate four times over two decades, in 2023 Common Ground Ministries purchased a former church in Beaver Meadows, Carbon County — a permanent home that lets us respond to food emergencies around the clock, host free monthly community events, and grow the Garden of Eating on our own land.
Our leadership
Pastor Everett Upton — Co-founder & Executive Director
A former publishing executive turned pastor, Everett holds a Bachelor of Theology and has served over 25 years in ministry — deacon, youth pastor, and pastor. He has operated food pantries through Second Harvest and Feeding America networks for more than 20 years, developed youth leaders through Job Corps and CGM programs like Y2Y and Men to Be, and authored the proposed “Upton Bill” asking Congress to direct 10% of federal food-relief funding to the small local pantries that hand food directly to neighbors.
Pastor Sherry Upton — Co-founder
A New York culinary school graduate, Sherry turned her training into a lifelong ministry of feeding people. She has co-led every chapter of Common Ground’s work — pantry operations, youth programs, and community meals — since the beginning.
Transparency & supporters
Common Ground Ministries is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit in good standing in Pennsylvania, funded by grants and donations and powered by volunteers. We are grateful to supporters including Pennsylvania state grants, the Luzerne County ARPA program, the PA Department of Environmental Protection, Walmart, Bank of America, PNC, Woodforest, Peoples Security Bank, Wayne Bank, Community Bank, Sanofi, the Hazleton Lions Club, West Hazleton Trinity Lutheran Church, Second Harvest Food Bank, and many local grocers, farms, churches, and neighbors.
Our work has been covered by WVIA, the Times News, and the Hazleton Standard-Speaker.