(Spirit Lake)– There will soon be some less hungry people in the area thanks to the work of a local organization and a partnership with USDA Agricultural Marketing Service and its Farmers To Families program. That program has been working with national, regional and local distributors affected by the closure of retaurants, hotels and other businesses to purchase up to $3 billion food from American producers. The distributors have been awarded a contract from the USDA to purchase and transport the food to non-profit groups for distribution to individuals and families in need. Locally, Angela Kofoot, Chair of the Dickinson County Hunger Coalition, tells KUOO news they were able to get their hands on some of the surplus food…
“We got on the list at a few different places. There was meat producers or distributors, there was produce distributors, dairy distributors. We got on as many lists as we could get and I got a call the other day from one who distributes cooked, pulled pork and they had actually 22 pallets remaining and I said well that’s a lot, so we decided to take two pallets of them and we’re going to be distributing through the food pantries in the area as well as we’re going to have a drive-through pick up on August 8th.”
The pickup will begin at 1:00 pm that afternoon at Lakeside Lab on the west side of West Lake Okoboji. In addition to the pork, Kofoot says they’ll also be distributing some chicken that day as well…
“We received a phone call today from a truck driving company who had an order that got canceled mid-route and so they have two pallets of fresh, cut up chicken and we said we’d take one of them and we’re sending the other pallet down to Grand Avenue Outreach for them to use.”
As far as local food pantries go, Kofoot says they continue to see a high demand but it has leveled off somewhat from what it was earlier…
“Our pantries initially in March when this all started, our numbers really doubled from what we had been seeing. It’s kind of leveled off and gone down in the last few months, I assume because some people are going back to work. It’s still higher than what we normally see.”
Donations to the food pantries may be made by contacting the pantries at Good News Community Church in Okobji, the First Presbyterian Church in Lake Park, or by calling Kofoot at 336-4444. Those in need should also contact those outlets.
