AMORY – The Amory Food Pantry’s busiest season is rapidly approaching with Thanksgiving and Christmas coming soon, and director Nancy Hoang is busy gearing up. She said volunteers are needed to help accommodate the demand, and there is a job for everybody.
“Substituting for a regular volunteer as little as two or three times a year matters. We have home schoolers as well as groups from the Amory Career and Technical Center who help us,” she said.
Hoang also listed community groups and event sponsors such as Chad Houston with Cruisin’ Amory and the Beta Sigma Phi social sorority as key supporters of the food pantry.
“The holidays bring on an extra burden on everyone’s budget. We’ve been reaching out to area churches for over 20 years to partner with us to supply food.”
Hoang said the food pantry will provide a choice of a turkey, ham or young hen with all the trimmings in addition to the regular grocery allotment during the distribution days immediately prior to the Thanksgiving and Christmas holidays. Partnerships with area churches help to gauge the scope of the need and gear up for as effective a response as possible.
“We start making assessments in October. We work with churches in creating donation programs that are achievable for their members,” she said.
The decline in support through the years has been the greatest challenge for the food pantry. Consequently, every dollar and hour donated are crucial as the year winds down to an end.
When the holidays have passed, the beginning of the new year typically finds the stock of commodities greatly diminished.
“Our schools do canned food drives in advance to restock the shelves,” she said.
The food pantry is located at 119 South Main St. and is open on Tuesday mornings from 8 until 11 a.m.
“We feel so blessed to be part of Amory. It’s a community sharing the love,” she said.
