God's Food Pantry offers free food to Pulaski Countians

Aug. 27—Friday morning, Executive Director of God's Food Pantry, Brenda Russell, opened the supply truck and saw 6, 8-foot pallets and 150 boxes of produce and knew that day she could feed a lot of hungry people.

Due to USDA regulations, supply, and ensuring people are met in specific areas of need, those who require the services of God's Food Pantry must procure some paperwork including pay stubs and proof of residence to receive what the pantries supplemental carts services.

However, due to an influx in supply that came in that day, the Pantry was able to offer free food with only a photo ID.

"Typically we do supplemental foods coming through. They have to prove all kinds of stuff. They have to bring paperwork with them. We did get a big truck in on Wednesday that had a lot of extra produce in it, and when that happens, we do a community distribution just to the general community," said Russell.

Russell said surpluses like this really help the Pantry. While some times of the year, donations are constant and almost more than they need, the rest of the year can be difficult.

"This time of the year is very hard for us, because literally are shelves are bare. Everybody's heart is soft in November and December, and they do food drives thinking about feeding people for Thanksgiving and feeding people for Christmas and it's really on their hearts," said Russell.

God's Food Pantry receives 75% of their donations during the Holiday months but have to make do the rest of the year.

Said Russell, "You come into our warehouse in January, and you can't hardly walk through it for how much food is there. To somebody from the outside coming in and looking, they'd say 'Oh my gosh, they don't need anything. They have all of this stuff.' But then you have to understand, we have to work through those donations and make them last until almost the next November and December."

Friday however was different, and the team was successfully able to give almost 293 carts of food which fed approximately 659 people.

This is in addition to what the Pantry typically serves in a month—about 1500 families and around 120 to 140 homeless people.

The Pantry also offers a Seniors program, though it has dwindled since the Pandemic began.

Said Russell, "Of course, the federal government came out with a lot of additional benefits to people. We did find a significant drop in our senior population coming to get food, and I think quite frankly because they were afraid to come out for a couple years. We have a senior program. Up until March of 2020, we had 480 seniors on that program."

The Pandemic caused this program to come to a "screeching halt." Though seniors still needed the supplies. They were afraid to re-enter the world and possibly risk exposure to the Corona Virus.

"Since the pandemic, we've called our food bank and said 'you got to scale back on what you're sending us. We don't have enough people to come and get it.' The food stamp program had been increased during COVID. During the pandemic," said Russell. "And that's all gone back to their pre-pandemic levels. and since the food stamps have been cut back to pre-pandemic levels, the patronizing here has picked up considerably. But still not with our seniors. I think that they're still afraid to get out with the general public, and they don't want to be with 479 of their closest friends."

Thankfully, said Russell, the Pandemic has not slowed down the supply of "government cheese" which old folks have been putting on their macaroni since the Reagan administration.

"If their box doesn't have cheese in it, you will know about it," Russell said and laughed.

Russell also noted free food programs that don't give out a full cart of food but still provide to those in immediate need.

"We have a sack lunch program where if you come in and you're hungry you get a sack lunch no questions asked. For example yesterday, we did 200 sack lunches yesterday, plus our regular cart service, plus our homeless service," said Russell. "We keep busy here. We are the largest serving food pantry in the southeast 50 counties."