IGA Round Up begins Nov. 1

•October 28, 2015•

by Keith Stewart
For the NP

The Sullivan IGA Round Up may be an annual fundraiser, but for the Moultrie County Food Pantry it helps lighten a big load this time of year– providing 200 Thanksgiving dinner baskets, which is a reoccurring need.

“A lot of the Thanksgiving baskets we give away go to the elderly,” said Moultrie County Food Pantry coordinator Kristy Dawson. “Some of them only get $16 a month on their Link card, which is not obviously enough for a month’s worth of food let alone a meal for Thanksgiving or Christmas.”

In order to meet the need, Dawson and the pantry try to put together at least 200 baskets this time every year.

They include a turkey or turkey breasts, cranberry sauce, ingredients for green bean casserole, noodles, mashed potatoes and gravy, sweet potato casserole and stuffing.

But not only does the pantry try to provide the fixings for a special holiday meal for those in need, it also tries to keep up with its normal outreach by still providing the normal small, medium, and large boxes of food for individuals and families, with each box supplying a week’s worth of meals.

And with the lack of a state budget now four months into the fiscal year, Dawson says those boxes have become a bit more important.

“Because of the lack of funding, we are trying to give more items in our food boxes to last a little longer than before,” said Dawson. “We’ve also increased our ground beef order. Our standing order used to be 80 pounds. Now we’re at 100 because we were running out.”     Login or Subscribe to read the rest of this story.