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By Sarah Hite shite@timesleader.com
Staff Writer
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The director of the Back Mountain Food Pantry has resigned from his position following a letter to the editor he sent to two area newspapers.

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Mark Stull has resigned as director of the Back Mountain Food Pantry.

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To read a letter to the editor written by former Back Mountain Food Pantry Director Mark Stull, please log on to www.mydallaspost.com.

Mark Stull, who had been director of the pantry since July 2008, quit Tuesday after he alleges members of the pantry’s board became angry that he sent a letter to the editors of The Dallas Post and The Times Leader. The letter acknowledged and addressed a recent theft that occurred at the pantry.

The newspapers, both owned by the Wilkes-Barre Publishing Co., have agreed not to publish the letter at Stull’s request because he is no longer the pantry’s director; however, the letter may be viewed on the newspapers’ Web sites.

Stull was a volunteer and was not paid for his position at the food pantry.

“That’s how I think,” Stull said of the letter in which he mentioned the theft but promised the pantry would continue to serve those in need. “I believe those words. I felt the Back Mountain Food Pantry and any volunteer organization like that needs to be an organization of honesty, integrity and openness.”

Founded in 1977, the Back Mountain Food Pantry serves residents of the Dallas and Lake-Lehman School Districts. It is operated by the Back Mountain Ministerium, which is comprised of 24 interdenominational churches.

According to Kingston Township Police Sergeant Michael Moravec, Trucksville United Methodist Church and the Back Mountain Food Pantry were both the victims of theft earlier this month. The pantry leases storage and office space in the basement of the church on Knob Hill Road in Trucksville.

A police report regarding the theft stated the Rev. Lori Steffenson, who is pastor of the church, informed an officer that two thefts occurred between Feb. 2 and Feb. 9 from the church learning center offices. The report states that Steffenson said $477 was taken from the business office and that another $1,153 in checks to be deposited were stolen.

In a separate incident, a theft occurred sometime between Feb. 3 and Feb. 4 when a vestibule money box was broken into and approximately $40 stolen at St. Therese’s Roman Catholic Church on Pioneer Avenue in Shavertown, Moravec said.

Moravec said it is not believed the incidents are related and that neither church wishes to prosecute anyone. Both cases are closed.

Joe Hardisky, president of the food pantry’s board of directors, said Stull was appointed manager of the pantry and was not a director. Hardisky said Stull had no authority to speak to the media and needed the board’s permission before doing so.

“We really love Mark dearly and we’re really concerned with some of his personal issues too, but it’s just the fact that he just didn’t seem to fit into our organization as perhaps we had hoped to,” Hardisky said.

Hardisky said he will be the interim manager of the pantry and the board will meet to reorganize and eventually select a new manager.

When asked by a reporter if it was a problem when Stull spoke to the media in the past about positive issues regarding the pantry, Hardisky said it was not. When asked if it was a problem this time because the theft was negative, Hardisky told the reporter he wanted to end the conversation.

Stull said he was under the impression that he was the director of the pantry. He said the “personal problems” he has been experiencing involve having to put his mother into a nursing home recently. In addition, one of his daughters likely needs to have thyroid surgery.

Those issues did not factor into his decision to leave the pantry in any way, Stull said.

“It was time for me to move on,” Stull said of his decision to leave the pantry. “I did my work there. There’s no shortage of need of volunteer activities out there. Hopefully, the food pantry’s is in equal or better shape today than it was when I started.”