January 25, 2022

On Tuesday morning, in rolled the MANNA delivery truck with 5,000 pounds of pasta, soup, beans, vegetables, tuna, peanut butter, tortillas, 20 banana boxes of condiments, and 20 boxes of frozen meat. Fortunately too, we also received 580 pounds of produce which included fresh green beans, zucchini, onions, and Fresh Express salad kits. Rob shared with us that we average distributing food to about 800 individuals in a two week span. That's close to 9,000 meals! Thank you volunteers who helped us with the unloading of the pallets of food from MANNA and placing it on our shelves.

Saturday, we welcomed 118 households, representing 388 individuals and registered seven new neighbors, The UNC Eshelman School of Pharmacy interns offered flu shots and blood pressure checks. We are grateful for Walgreens sponsoring this opportunity for neighbors and volunteers. We are grateful for the six Christ School students who spent the morning with us shopping with neighbors and helping with carry out. The students from Christ School have participated in the success of our garden by helping prepare the acre for planting.

Chef Martha prepared three different recipes for the WLOS Carolina Kitchen segment. Watch for her cooking demonstrations preparing Banana Pancakes, spaghetti squash, and a tasty cauliflower dish. Ingredients and recipes are available at the pantry or on the WLOS website after the segment "airs."

This week City Bakery donated loaves of bread. Other donated items were from Bright Farms-lettuce, Ingles and Bimbos-bread, Wal-Mart-misc items, Flavor-First peppers, and MilCo-milk. Friday, our volunteers stocked the shelves with purchased items from MANNA and Sav-Mor (canned goods, milk, and eggs). We purchased potatoes, onions, zucchini and turnips J and J Tomato Co.

On behalf of the executive committee, thank you to our volunteers and our area churches, civic groups, local merchants, and families for all you do to feed our community helping to reduce food insecurity.

Kathy Noyes