Food Room Update for August
Food Room Update for August
By Dwight Hart, Ministerial volunteer
It seems that each month of operation of our food pantry brings some new items for our families to enjoy and often repeats some favorites that clients hope appear in their boxes monthly. Some favorites appearing this month were tea, cereal, mac and cheese, tomato sauce, coffee drink, pudding, peas, pumpkin, beans, sports drink, tuna skillet dinner, cookies, crackers, shelf stable milk, applesauce, taco kits, a huge variety of produce, popcorn, blueberries, zucchini, plus those, who qualify for USDA items, received mushroom soup, chicken, beef chili, and snacks are generally a part of every month’s distribution.
Because of quantities received, not every family received some specific items, but every box for every family member contained good choices. We always encourage every family visiting to use all their food, and if something doesn’t fit their individual meal planning expertise or taste, to please pass the food on to someone who will utilize it. Keeping food in the food chain is important to food security in every neighborhood!
The first load of food for our pantry weighed 25,335, which was followed by the Prairie Farms delivery of 4,675 pounds, both of which were distributed on August 14t and 17 to 181 families, having a family member count of 439. Another load was delivered on August 26 weighing 9,463 pounds, which contained produce, milk, and frozen meat and was distributed on Friday August 28 until the supply was exhausted. This newest delivery went to 200 families having 468 family members. If you add all three deliveries together, you will note that the Schuyler County food pantry distributed 39,473 pounds of food in August 2020!
Checking our past records found that amount is only exceeded by the food received in February 2013, when your pantry received three loads of food for the month weighing a total of 40,043 pounds which was distributed to 218 families having 584 family members. Lots of food was delivered and distributed to lots of people in each instance.
