Lyon County’s food pantries are facing a “terrible” need for holiday food donations.
“As far as turkeys or hams, we don’t have them. And I don’t know that we’ll get them. That’s the scary part,” said longtime Silver Stage Pantry Manager Kathy McIntosh. “This is the first year that I’ve been here we’ve had nothing for Thanksgiving. It’s terrible.”
The Yerington, Silver Springs and Dayton food pantries are part of Healthy Communities Coalition of Lyon and Storey Counties’ Healthy Food Hub. Combined, the three pantries serve about 1,500 households per week – 400 in Dayton, 800 in Silver Springs and 300 in Yerington.
While the pantries receive items from the Food Bank of Northern Nevada, they also rely on grants and donations from local businesses, charitable groups and residents.
“We do need assistance with holiday meals. Some form of poultry, turkeys, whole chickens, game hens, turkey breasts, anything like that, and the traditional fixings for a traditional holiday meal,” said Dayton Pantry Manager Jesus Santos.
Santos, who doubles as the coalition’s data coordinator, said the number of people being served in the county keeps growing – in the Dayton area alone, the number has increased 93 percent over the past year.
“There is quite a need there county wide,” he said.
The Yerington and Dayton pantries are partnered with Smiths and Raley’s, where shoppers can make donations in person or online to benefit the local pantries.
“They can go onto the Smiths website or their mobile app and they can purchase items there and in the contact information they can note the Dayton food pantry for pickup,” Santos said. “When we go there daily to pick up our daily store donations, they will hold and distribute the items that have been donated.”
For McIntosh and the Silver Stage Pantry, there is no local grocery store to seek donations from.
“We have nowhere to go here. We don’t have any grocery stores or nothing that we can hit up,” she said. “I’ll take anything. We’re getting down to the nitty gritty.”
Yerington Pantry Manager Ron Hoard said that although he has a grant to purchase turkeys for clients to enjoy on Thanksgiving, he is falling short on the traditional side dishes.
“The area I don’t have much of is corn, stuffing and cranberry sauce,” he said. He is hoping a local business or charitable organization will come through with a donation of the needed goods. “It’s all about making sure the community’s got holiday meals.”
All three pantries are accepting donations.
The Dayton Pantry is open from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Monday through Thursday and is located at 209 Dayton Valley Rd.; the Silver Stage Pantry is open 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. and is located at 3595 Ramsey Cutoff in Silver Springs; and the Yerington Food Pantry is open 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. Monday, Thursday and Friday and 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Tuesday and Wednesday and is located at 124 Bridge St.
Amy Alonzo covers Mason Valley and rural Nevada. See her work right here. Here's how you can support local journalism.
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