June 21, 2023

Quiet on the Set! Last Wednesday, Kristen and Meredith, from MANNA, along with several volunteers from the Pantry  arrived to be part of a PSA (Public Service Announcement).  MANNA is in the process of providing information on the "Neighbor Shopping Model" for the community at large. MANNA serves many counties in Western North Carolina and wants to ensure that everyone understands about food insecurity in the community and resources available in their area.

North Windy Ridge Intermediate School students, in Heather's classroom, assembled "Kindness Bags" for our neighbors. Not only were they filled with healthy snacks but included a personal "happy" note. How blessed we are to have such caring students in our community! Random acts of kindness continued for the Pantry as Doug, Todd, Kim, Bill, and Dick loaded their vehicles with our bulk food order, used our pallet jack to unload their vehicles, and placed food items in the storage order to meet the needs of our "neighbors."  As a note, we are averaging over 115 families a week.

We welcomed 123 families representing 416 individuals and registered six new families. City Bakery donated loaves of bread. Other donated items were Flavor-First-tomatoes & peppers, Panera and Ingles-bread, Bimbos-snacks and bread, Wal-Mart and Big Lots-misc items and food,  Humane Society- dog/cat food and MilkCo-milk.  Fletcher Methodist, Nativity Lutheran, Calvary Episcopal, Tabernacle of Praise, and other anonymous donors contributed food and misc. items for distribution on Saturday.

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.