Community Food Bank
The Community Food Bank was awarded a COVID-19 Local Relief Grant of $2,000 in 2021.
Presently, we are receiving food deliveries each month from the Kansas Food Bank, Walmart in Goodland, and large orders from our local grocery store. Right now, we have credit at the Kansas Food Bank due to a nationwide donation to the Feed America organization by Jeff Bezos. The food items we receive from Walmart are free; we just need to go down once a month to pick them up. We spend approximately $2,000+ a month at our local grocery store. These food shipments feed between 32-42 families two times a month. We’ve observed in the last two months an increase in numbers of our food bank patrons. Before the 1st of March, we were averaging about 30 families twice a month. Recently, our number have increased to 40-42 families each food bank distribution. We plan to use any grant money provided to our food bank for additional food purchases and a new chest freezer. We have four freezers, and three of them are well over twenty-five years old. It’s a concern that one of the freezers will stop running, and our frozen items will spoil. (This happened once last year.) We are very conscientious about the food items we order for our families. We try to avoid grocery items full of fat and sugar. Our distributions every two weeks include fresh fruits and vegetables, canned items, at least 5 meat/seafood items, paper goods (toilet paper, kleenix, paper towels, napkins), hygiene products (deodorant, shampoo, body wash, laundry soap, dish soap, hand soap), condiments (ketchup, mustard, pickles, salad dressing), cooking essentials (flour, sugar, baking soda, baking powder, cake mixes, dry milk, eggs, oil), cereals, drinks, pasta, etc. We feel like we provide a healthy choice of food for our clients. In addition to people who come to the food bank, we also offer delivery of food to the elderly and sick. (We presently have 3 individuals that we deliver to each food bank night.) Our Community Food Bank serves all of the Cheylin School District.
