Pantry gives hand up to families in need
By JILL DENNING GACKLE
Fueled by community generosity, the Garrison Food Pantry had a year of distributing almost twice as much food to hungry families as originally expected.
Garrison Area Resource Center and Food Pantry opened in January 2020 with hopes of distributing as much as 30,000 pounds of food during the year. Instead the organization closed out the year by giving out more than 55,347 pounds of food to an average of more than 62 families a month.
2020 Pantry President Alisa Dahl said, “The pantry board set what we thought was a lofty goal for 2020 - delivering 30,000 pounds of food to the needy. Little did we know the needs of the community would be affected by a pandemic. We are proud that the pantry was able to step up and deliver that much food in our first year of operation.”
According to the organization’s data, the pantry served an average of 104 adults each month, 80 children and 35 seniors. A total of 801 individuals visited the pantry just once or twice, according to Dahl.
Although the pantry opened with plans for clients to be able to shop the shelves for items of their choosing, the pandemic changed all that. In April the pantry started offering curbside alley pickup. As the need became apparent, the pantry had to have enough space and equipment.
