After its holiday season food and money drive, Community Pantry
came up short in food donations, but exceeded expectations in
monetary donations.
Hoping for 25,000 pounds of food, Community Pantry is estimating
donations at 11,000 pounds. In 2002, the organization received
20,000 pounds of food.
After its holiday season food and money drive, Community Pantry came up short in food donations, but exceeded expectations in monetary donations.
Hoping for 25,000 pounds of food, Community Pantry is estimating donations at 11,000 pounds. In 2002, the organization received 20,000 pounds of food.
Donations are still being collected through the end of this week, said Tom Larkin, executive director of Community Pantry.
“We’re short, but it won’t hurt us. We’ll just have to work a little harder,” he said.
Community Pantry is also linked to the Second Harvest Food Bank. Locally, it is the biggest recipient of food from Second Harvest, Larkin said.
In contrast to food collections, community members donated $29,500 as part of Community Pantry’s Holiday Sharing drive. Holiday Sharing asks for monetary donations via mail. The financial contributions beat last year’s total by around $5,000, Larkin said.
“The response has been tremendous,” he said.
Larkin has no idea how to attribute the decrease in food donations and increase in monetary donations. The acts of kindness and generosity are random, he said.
Community Pantry serves people throughout the year. This year, the organization will hand out, on average, 808 bags of food each week. The cost for 2003 has come in around $1 million, Larkin said.
The most common recipients of donated food are children, homeless, seniors, the working poor and disabled.
Because Community Pantry is a year-round operation, Larkin encourages people and businesses to keep the organization on their lists for 12 months.
A $50 donation to Community Pantry allows it to buy $450 worth of food because of volunteers, buying food in bulk and discounts available to non-profits.
Community Pantry can be contacted at 637-0340 or 30 Airport Drive in Hollister.
