About 20 frozen turkeys made their way to the basement of St. John Lutheran Church in Beatrice on Tuesday morning, just in time for the Thanksgiving rush.
At the Beatrice Community Food Pantry, this is a busy time of year for donations. The work began with the pantry's ingathering a little over a week ago, during which volunteers picked up bags of donated food from across Beatrice. Work will continue through the beginning of January, when the holidays conclude.
On Tuesday morning, Neapco employees, Mike Harlan, Brad Thober and Kenny Pospichal, visited the pantry to deliver hundreds of pounds of canned and non-perishable food items and a couple dozen frozen turkeys.
Jessi Damrow, who works in human resources for Neapco, said she couldn’t say how many years the company’s been making the donations, but Neapco gives every employee a turkey for Thanksgiving, which some donate to the Community Food Pantry. The company also presented the Community Food Pantry with a check for $500.
Exmark brought in turkeys for the pantry as well, and Stan and Judy Meyer donated gift cards to help the food pantry purchase personal items from the Dollar Tree.
The Meyers, who own the Ashley Furniture store in Beatrice, celebrated 48 years in business with a donation to the Community Food Pantry of $4,800. It’s something they’ve been doing for the last decade, Stan said, as well as donating their time.
“It has been for 10 years or so, he said. “My wife and I both volunteer there. My wife has for years. You would not believe the amount of people that come in there that need food.”
Karen Mains, the coordinator at the pantry, said that on Tuesday morning alone, they’d seen multiple families lining up for food. There’s a lot of need in the community, she said, and it’s not slowing down.
“It takes a lot of food to feed this many people,” Mains said. “This morning, I don't think we had a family less than six. It takes a lot of food. They probably go out of here with $300 or $400 worth of food at a time.”
While their shelves are well-stocked at the moment, she said, monetary donations are appreciated and needed to purchase fresh food. The pantry spends $400 on hamburger alone each month, she said, and there are more things they need to purchase, like eggs, bread, margarine and potatoes.
Things like coffee, oil and Tuna Helper are all staples at the food pantry, she said, and there’s a lack of them at the moment.
Monetary donations also help the Community Food Pantry with other services they provide, said Sue Orwen, co-coordinator at the pantry.
“We try and help people with jobs, we try and help people with rent and apartments,” Orwen said. “We try to make some referrals with other types of service agencies. So, if there's something somebody needs that we can't do, we try to find a service agency that maybe can. We try to do more than just food.”
There’s been a lot of support coming in lately, Orwen said, and that’s been great to see. As soon as the employees from Neapco left the building, she was overwhelmed with emotion.
“Almost every day is busy,” she said, choking up a little. “We just have had so many people that have been giving.”
With an entire wall filled with food and 128 people helping to sort, date and store the food in what the Community Food Pantry lovingly calls the "dungeon,” holiday help has started to pour in to make sure no one goes hungry on Thanksgiving or Christmas.
While fall and winter mean larger donations to the pantry, Mains said, summertime is actually the busiest season for the Community Food Pantry. The kids are out of school, which means there is no school breakfast or lunch programs, and families are more reliant on the pantry for their daily needs.
In August, the pantry served more than 500 families in need. Demand for food goes up, but donations go down, Mains said.
“That's when all the expenses go way up because I have to buy so much,” she said. “Not much is coming in, but that's when we give out the most food, during the summer months.”
The Community Food Pantry is open every Monday and Thursday from 9 a.m. until noon and from 1 p.m. until 4 p.m. and during the afternoon on the last Tuesday of each month. Donations can be dropped off during those hours, and people needing help can stop by, but Orwen recommended calling ahead before coming in.
Each month, the pantry has about 65 volunteers working to organize food, make shopping lists and date each product to make sure no one gets expired food.
From Nov. 11, during the ingathering, to the week before Thanksgiving, the shelves at the Community Food Pantry have gone from nearly empty to bursting at the seams, Orwen said, and thinking about all the help coming in from the people in Beatrice was very encouraging.
“I just feel thankful,” Orwen said. “Emotionally so.”
