Midstates Bank President Pat Skelton presented a $500 check to the Harrison County Food Pantry in Missouri Valley on Monday, Dec. 5. This donation will, along with many others, will go towards the food pantry’s holiday gift basket give-away taking place on Saturday, Dec. 10, at the Community of Christ Church in Missouri Valley.
“It (the donation) will be put to good use,” said Melba Struble with the Harrison County Food Pantry, who accepted the check on behalf of the food pantry. “We have our gift basket give-away next Saturday, and it is greatly appreciated.”
Struble shared that the Harrison County Food Pantry’s gift basket give-away was made possible because of the generous donations from many people and organizations. Finding people in need of gift baskets takes a bit of footwork from the food pantry’s volunteers.
“We keep in mind that it is a county food pantry, and so we take letters around to all the schools in the county and to the highrises (Culavin Heights and Kovar Court),” said Struble. “We send out letters to anyone who has been a client of the food pantry in the past year, and they return the bottom part of the letter if they want a gift basket, and that is how we figure our inventory and are able to give these baskets away.”
The baskets are equivalent to a fancy meal, and people are given an amount of food that is based upon the size of their family. The food pantry gives them at least a week’s worth of groceries per person in the family, stated Struble.
“A lot of people have food drives and are very generous in their donations of both food and/or in money at this time of year, and that really helps us,” said Struble. “We are able to really stretch those dollars by using the grocery stores that are in the county. They are very helpful to us and deliver and give us good, decent prices for the things we ask for. We try to use the businesses in the county for this event and also for Easter. And again, it’s from the generous donations that people give us.”
Struble pointed out that there a lot of local volunteers that come to help with this event, and that a lot of people in Harrison County benefit from this.
“Last year we served 165 families in the county,” said Struble. “This year there seems to be more families and individuals, both younger and senior citizens, that are in need of food this time of year. It’s a real joyous time to be able to feel like you’re helping to put food on the table and bringing joy to the family. We’ve had people that come in and say that they have family coming to visit, but have no food to put on the table, so we feel that we are providing that opportunity for them to have a nice meal and sit around the table and maybe make their lives better.”
For those in need of food, Struble said that they may contact Laura Martin, Harrison County Food Pantry manager, at 712-642-2598.
“Last Friday, we had 13 people come in, in an hour, that needed food,” said Struble. “We do keep very busy out there.”
