March 29, 2023

The Calvary Episcopal Church Food Pantry's primary mission, goal, focus is the distribution of food each Saturday morning to help alleviate food insecurity in our community. Since 2009 when the Pantry opened, we have stayed the course. However, along this journey, we have evolved into more than a food pantry. Thanks to agencies like MANNA, who have many "wrap around services,” offer assistance in providing healthier choices of food through the SWAP program as one example. The UNC School of Pharmacy interns provide blood pressure, blood glucose checks, and seasonal flu shots several months over the year. The Lion's Club of Mills River offers eye screening twice a year for our neighbors. Volunteers have available the 211 cards. Twice a month Chef Martha provides cooking demonstrations using food items that are available on Saturday mornings. Neighbors enjoy a sample of the prepared item and are offered a recipe. WLOS videos Chef Martha for the Carolina Kitchen segments in the Pantry and garden where she uses items... again that are available in the Pantry. Most recently Chef Martha is featured in the spring Ingles Table Magazine for her deviled eggs and Green Pea Soup.

Coming to the end of our first quarter in 2023, want to share some statistics with you. This week we welcomed five new neighbors and 120 households representing 407 individuals. Fred also shared that for the month of March there was a total of 407 households representing 1,439 family members. January-March (First Quarter) a total of 1,373 households and 4,765 individuals was recorded averaging 114 neighbors per week, in 2022 we were averaging 70+/- families each week.

Panera Bread donated bread and rolls this week. City Bakery donated loaves of bread. Other donated items were from Bright Farms-lettuce, Ingles and Bimbos-bread, Wal-Mart and Big Lots, 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). Produce this week included sweet potatoes, peppers, lettuce, onions, tomatoes, and yellow squash.

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 for your food and monetary donations. We are able to feed our neighbors 3 and 1/2 days of food or 11 meals.