OUR MISSION: FEED THE HUNGRY 

Food donations at Carol’s Kindness are up for the month and up 21% over last year.  We are getting more usable produce than ever, lots of snacks and beverages of all kinds too, but not as much meat and dairy as we had been getting. 

• We have a continuous supply of canned goods, including lots of types of beans. 
• Lately we have had massive donations of eggs, but that is down to a trickle again. 
• We get quite a bit of deli meat and cheese from Sprouts that we portion into packages, it is ready to eat and averages around 10-12 oz per package on meat, 8 -10 oz on cheese. 
• This month we have had large donations of hot dogs and all kinds of sausages that we are still bagging to distribute. Those are usually 1 pound packages.
• We are a bit low on cereal but still have some left each week. We also have quite a lot of grits. Hopefully more cereal will be arriving soon.

Carol Rabun and I have done a lot of fundraising and grants matching to have money to purchase the items in short supply by donation: dry beans, rice, pasta, peanut butter, pop-top cans of pasta and chili.  Lately we are buying meat items like chicken legs and hot dogs when supplies of meat run low. Our shelving and cold storage fill up every week to overflowing, just in time to bring the food to Gus Garcia to distribute.

We are seeing a lot more people each week (up over 150 from 130), and many have not been to a pantry before. We know it is super hard to be used to shopping at the grocery store with unlimited selections, then not be able to get what you want to have from the pantry. We can only give out the items we have on hand. We try to have selections in each catagory so people get choices.

We are committed to allowing our clients to make their own selections instead of a pre-packed bag. It takes longer to distribute this way, but clients get food they want and will eat. Over the last couple of years we have gotten frequent donations of food that the clients were given at other pantries but would not eat. It is not culturally acceptable, or they just do not like that food, or do not know what to do with it. Several of our volunteers offer suggestions on fixing items too.

Sometimes people think if they show up hours before we open registration that it will help them get more food, but it does not, and the wait is just a lot longer that way. 

We keep a couple of tubs of shelf-stable food for those who lack refrigeration. We purchase some of these: peanut butter, tuna, mayo, soups, and occasional other items. We keep protein/granola bars in this, too. We are keeping silverware and napkins in the tubs as well.
We do a lot of outreach with other groups to feed hungry kids at school, kids after school, people on the street, and in camps. None of this limits the food we share at the pantry with the Community. 

Thanks to our many donors: #sproutsfarmersmarket, #target,#specs, #costco, #pizzahut, #loveservefeed, #CentralTexasFoodBank, #LoneStarFamily and all the people in the community who support us with donations of food and $$. Thanks also to the volunteers who spend countless hours transporting, packing, arranging and giving out the food and doing all the behind the scenes jobs that make a pantry function.

Pantry stats for 10/18/25
Total registered: 162
Total household: 454
Total over 60: 96
Total kids incl. outreach: 95
Total Unhoused incl. outreach: 127
Total volunteers: 57
Food donated/salvaged this so far this month: 20,738 pounds
275,375 pounds this year, up 20.9% over last year!!