The Cass County Food Pantry has run out of food and needs help from the community to continue helping those in need during the holiday and winter season.
The Food Pantry ran out of food to distribute around the 18th of September. Jo Ann Anderson, Director of the food pantry said that a combination of things lead to the program’s current shortage.
Anderson said that “Donations have fallen. We do get some government commodities and they have fallen way off, and I think we have had more requests for food, so it has been a combination of things that have all come at once.”
On Monday, the Cass County Board of Trustees approved a donation of $1,000.00 to the food pantry towards their goal of raising $30,000.00 to purchase a semi truck of food for the pantry to distribute.
“We pack boxes of food for families in Cass County, and we have been helping at least 250 families, that we serve every month, and it is worth about $150.00 worth in each one of those boxes. So it takes a lot of food and a lot of money to buy that food in order to supply these families. We try to have enough food for them to be able to prepare around five meals per month.”
Anderson said that as the weather gets colder, the need will get larger and that she hopes the community will remember the food pantry.
“We hope that people will not forget us. The holidays are coming up, and we would like to have something a little special in the boxes if possible, and it is going to take a lot of funding to prepare that.”
Anderson said that the donations they need most currently is money, toward the goal of ordering a truck load of food for the pantry, but that of course they will also accept food donations as well.
“We have a walk in freezer and walk in cooler, so if anyone has fresh things they would like to donate, we can store them until we can them them distributed. It is deer season and I don not know if anyone will be donating deer meat, but if they do, it has to be processed from a professional like Cass Meats or Jones Meat and Locker, for us to be able to accept it.”
If you are able to help the Cass County Food Pantry with a monetary donation, you can send it to the Cass County Food Pantry, 210 South Main Street, Virginia, Illinois 62691.
Donations of fresh or packaged and canned food are welcome, as well as deer processed by a professional meat and locker.
To donate food, call 217-473-5638, and Jo Ann will make sure someone can meet you at the food pantry to collect the donations.