Church member and community volunteers assisting with the mobile pantry are: (front row l-r) Kent Dunwoody, Sarah Dunwoody, Marcia Hemmers, Erin Pingel, (back row) Richard Schwarz, Jeff Johnson, Mark White and Sue Ahlers. Photo courtesy Erin Pingel.
As a means of battling hunger and food insecurity in Clay County, the Spencer Church is partnering with the Food Bank of Iowa to provide service to hungry Iowans.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture defines food insecurity as being uncertain of having, or unable to acquire, enough food to meet the basic needs of all household members because of insufficient money or other resources. In Clay County food insecurity affects one in seven households.
The Spencer Church hosts a quarterly mobile food pantry on their property. A mobile pantry is a farmer’s market style distribution targeted toward counties with a need for additional pantry service.
“I learned of this program in October of 2014 and thought it would be a great opportunity for our church to serve the community,” said Spencer pastor Kent Dunwoody. “After church board approval we had many in our small church volunteer to help with the first distribution in February where we helped 116 households. We received many thanks from the people who we served, as well as compliments on how organized our first food pantry was.”
Two pantry distributions have been held this year and two more are scheduled for August and November.
This article was also published in the July/August 2015 print edition of OUTLOOK. It was written by Michelle Hansen, communication/Sabbath school director for the Iowa-Missouri Conference.
