October 4, 2023
Are we helping to reduce Food Insecurity in our community? How do we discern this simple yet complex question? We can look at our data. Two weeks ago 155 households shopped for food, and this past week we welcomed 134 households with twelve new families. Fred reported that for the month 670 families visited our pantry representing 2,486 individuals. We are so blessed that you — our community — donated 21,418 pounds of food and non-food to the pantry. To be a bit more specific, 20,228 pounds were food items and 1,190 pounds were non-food items. Bright Farms, Flavor First, LAF Garden, Arden Rotary, Tractor.Farms, and the St. Andrews gleaners donated a total of 9,802 pounds of produce of the 20,000+ pounds of food. Just looking at this little bit of data, we believe that by providing almost five tons of fresh vegetables along with milk, eggs, protein, grains, and fruits we are attempting to contribute our small part.
However, we could not accomplish any of the above successes without our volunteers. Many of you may not know that it takes a minimum of 35 volunteers to open the pantry on Saturday morning. We begin distributing food at 8:00 and end at 11:00. Several volunteers begin arriving around 6:00 to complete the early morning setup, which includes unloading the refrigerators that have the fresh produce, moving pallets of produce to the outside landing area for the bonus items that may have been donated, setting up the intake room that houses computers, and hanging the number boards. All items must be placed in respective areas, just to mention a few early morning responsibilities. Every neighbor who shops has a volunteer accompany them as we are attempting to build personal connections. After the neighbor has shopped, another volunteer pushes the grocery cart to their car. Pictures this week include some of our volunteers who work on the different days in the garden and pantry.
We had lots of donations this week: Bimbos and City Bakery filled our bread racks with bread and bakery items. Bright Farms donated 20 cases of salad kits. Other donors include: LAF Garden- collards, tomatoes, Flavor-First-tomatoes, corn, and peppers, St. Andrews gleaners- tomatoes, Bright Farms,- peppers, eggplant, green beans, tomatoes, corn, cabbage, several types of squash, Wal-Mart and Big Lots, misc items and food, Project Dignity-feminine products, Humane Society- dog/cat food and MilkCo-milk. Nativity Lutheran, Fletcher Methodist, Calvary Episcopal, and the Tabernacle of Praise Churches and other anonymous donors contributed their time, food, and misc. items during the week.
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. We thank you and appreciate your food and monetary donations.
