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Photo: Tyler Lake
The pantry now feeds up to about 2,300 people a month.
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Photo: Tyler Lake
Pantry 279 is run by Girl Scout Troop 69-279 in Elletsville.
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Photo: Tyler Lake
Volunteers are preparing to hand out 700 food baskets Saturday.
Thanksgiving is quickly approaching and, as always, families are in need of food.
Pantry 279 in Ellettsville is full of people who need a little help feeding their families. And they’re getting that help from a surprising source. The pantry is run by Girl Scout Troop 69-279 in Elletsville. Alongside other volunteers, the girls help stock shelves and separate food that’s collected.
The pantry now feeds up to about 2,300 people a month. It’s been fully operational for just a year, so when people started asking if the group could put together Thanksgiving baskets to hand out, they didn’t know if they’d have the resources.
Troop Leader Cindy Chavez says she put out a Facebook request for help putting together enough baskets for the holiday. She thought that would be the end of it, but she was wrong.
“Facebook responded and said, ‘Well, we’ll take 500 cans of that, our place will take 200 cans of this,’ and within three days we had half the list covered,” Chavez says.
Now, just two weeks after that request, volunteers are preparing to hand out 700 food baskets.
“If this little community can pull together and do this insane thing within two weeks when normally everybody else takes a year to come up with this. You know, you guys can accomplish anything really,” Chavez says.
