Pantry aims to raise $30000 to "end hunger" in Willcox area - Willcox Range News

Pantry aims to raise $30000 to "end hunger" in Willcox area - Willcox Range News

Willcox -- The Willcox Community Food Pantry is asking the community to “help us end hunger” during its latest food drive, which kicks off this week.

Director Nell Worden said the goal of this year’s food drive is to raise $30,000.

She likens hunger in the Willcox area to a war against the enemy – hunger – and calls upon loyal patriots to fight it. 

“The Willcox Community Food Pantry became aware of a war occurring right here within our schools, community work places, and even in our own homes,” said Worden, describing the enemy as “very cunning, hard to notice, and rarely spoken of.”

“With these traits, the enemy has been able to grow in strength undetected, as though invisible. It could be attacking your neighbor, a co-worker, the student in the desk next to your own,” she said. “Our silence is our enemy’s greatest weapon against our own community.”

“However, we refuse to go quietly away. Our enemy has a name – it is hunger and/or slow starvation – and it is not just going to leave on its own,” said Worden, appealing to the community for help. “Look around you. Do you know if a child cries itself to sleep over hunger? Do you know if a co-worker cannot concentrate, wondering what their children will eat tonight? Do you know if a student fails a test, thinking only of the cramps of hunger in their own stomachs?”

Worden reminds the community that even though we cannot see the battles in Iraq and Afghanistan on our own streets, nonetheless they exist.

“Patriots do not say, ‘Oh, they have agencies to take care of that.’ A patriot asks, ‘What can I do?,’ The answer is to offer something – support, food, and/or money,” Worden said. “Help us fight this enemy, we have not ceased to fight to this war – the war on hunger.”

She reminds the community that “heroes are not born, they are made.”

“Make yourself a hero and help us fight this war – the war on hunger,” said Worden, asking community members to be a patriot and “start a food drive in your work place and/or church.”

The food drive, which began this week, is scheduled to end Saturday, Dec. 31.

“Help us drive this enemy out of Willcox, and share in the comfort of knowing you have done something good,” Worden said. “Our community as a whole will be blessed by this effort.”

As one of its programs, the Food Pantry currently provides backpacks of food for at-risk school children to take home on weekends. 

These packs are filled with things such as kid-friendly snacks, an entire family meal, breakfast foods, lunch meals, and two loaves of bread. 

“We send enough home in the backpack for three kids,” said Worden, adding, “We are feeding about 90 kids per week.”

The Food Pantry currently sends out 30 backpacks, at a cost of $10 per child per week.

“We started out with five kids and now we have 30,” Worden said. “It is a help to the community and people appreciate it.”