As the Grateful Bread food pantry prepares for the Fall and Winter seasons, the number of families in need of services continues to grow. “In the last 2 months I have seen a 20,000 lb. decrease in food donations and we have increased our family numbers by 62 families/217 people,” says Grateful Breads Program Manager, Peggy.
The pantry served 1,090 families or 2,882 people in the month of August – best practice is that a pantry serves no more than 1,000 people. We are serving 3 times what generally a pantry serves. Last year most of our new 356 families/1,246 people were first time users of the food pantry – these are families that were able to scrape by in the past but with the increase price of food, the loss of a job, some change in their family structure, they have had to seek outside help. A year ago August, we were serving 734 families as opposed to this August of 1,090 families.
One family, the McNeil’s, recently came to Grateful Bread for the first time. When Tom lost his job, his wife, Melinda, and their children did not have food to eat. With the help of CAP, Tom, Melinda and the children are able to better make ends meet during this difficult time. Another family, the Pealer’s, have taken custody of their three grandchildren and needed help to make their fixed income stretch to care for the needs of three young children. They sought help from our Child and Family Development Center who referred them to Grateful Bread for food assistance.
The county we serve has 4,137 people living in poverty. We are serving 2,882 of them, which is 70% of the people in poverty in Rockcastle Co.
The miracle is we do not have a waiting list, we serve the families that need to be served and put our faith that God will provide. It’s beautiful to see His provision each and every day, sometimes it’s through a last-minute shipment of food or through a generous donation that makes all the difference.
The price of food is always a factor for our families, it’s a factor for us also, when we have to purchase items, we get a lot less for our money than we did a couple of years ago. To put together the most inexpensive meal we can think of—spaghetti with sauce, a vegetable and fruit—for a family of four would cost about $5.50. If you take that multiplied by our 1,090 families, that equals $5,995 for one meal a month for each family. To put that in perspective, I have $2,702 a month food budget so we rely VERY much on donations.
Our goal is to provide each family with one week’s worth of groceries, we rarely meet that goal but do our best to get as close as we can. We thank you for helping families like the McNeil’s and Pealer’s to have a meal on their table.