Carol’s Kindness Plus has applied many times over the last few years to become a site for the food bank but some rule got in our way as we are not a traditional pantry. CTFB established a new classification for pantries like ours that can receive some of the donations they collect all over the Central Texas area. We are being blessed weekly with 3 pallets of a variety of fruits and vegetables. Sometimes we get a lot of one item, like 800 pounds of lemons or red onions or cucumber. Mostly the food is very manageable and goes out fast. This donation added to our other donations from Sprouts and Target and others each week give the clients a good variety of fresh fruits and vegetable to choose from. Have you seen the duffle bags full of garden fresh greens and herbs that Bassam brings each week? He even explains to people how to use what he has brought and how to use some of the other veggies too.
With heavy hearts we supported the efforts at Love, Serve, Feed in Georgetown to get food for the residents of the Shady River RV park that was pretty much swept away by the flooding and the volunteers who were assisting with clean up. We sent sandwiches and fruit, cereal and milk, snack bars of all kinds and sweets too for energy. We were able to send a box of silverware, plates, bowls and napkins too.
Volunteers braved the rain repeatedly and the humid Texas heat to bring so much food to Carol’s to give out. The last 2 weeks we had large surprise donations of all kinds food from other pantries that were unable to give out all that they had. What a blessing! One of our donors gifted us 31 boxes of mixed staples, mostly canned goods to carry us along for weeks. Sprouts has been especially generous with eggs and deli meats/cheese that we portion and distribute– 124 packages this week. This week we had ICE CREAM too and will have some more next week. Our specials table have been full with coffee, cake mixes, candy, and assorted items that come in small amounts. We have a box for those who need food that needs little to no refrigeration is full of quick cook meals, canned meats, and peanut butter but I ran out totally yesterday. They even took the cracker packets that got broken up by the cans. We will refill for next week. I am adding canned past to the box too.
I am taking a tip from another pantry and doing a short video of our offerings so that people can see what we have on offer. I am learning to navigate the system and get the video out ASAP. Check it out and see what we had this time. We are trying not to show the people but focus on the food. https://www.facebook.com/reel/1319473973178235
Several of our volunteers are doing more outreach to the unhoused: Elias and Shannon are supporting a camp and more, Jeff is going out almost every day to hand out sandwiches and sweets, we have been sending weekly snacks to Hands With Purpose that serves a hot meal every other Saturday under the 8th and IH 35 bridge and hits outreach at St. Johns area too. We also send healthy snack for summer and after school to Yager Flats. Dianne cooks a meal for the Charlie Center each week using some of our donations and through another group have been able to support Sunday breakfast at the Mosaic, a place that Kerby went every Sunday.
Thank you to #SproutsFarmersMarkets, #target, #specs, #canteen, #LoneStarMarket, #CentralTexasFoodBank, #costco and neighbors for the food and cash donations. Thanks too to the staff at Gus Garcia Rec Center for their help and the room in the building
