The Food Bank for Central and Northeast Missouri will have a mobile pantry stop in Callaway County this month following a recent fire that heavily damaged New Beginnings Church of Christ and Food Pantry.
The mobile pantry will be set from 2-4 p.m. on the third Friday of each month in the west parking lot of Court Street United Methodist Church. The next stop is this Friday.
"We recognized that we needed an additional pantry to distribute grocery items for residents to take home," Lindsay Young Lopez, the Food Bank's executive director, said. "Our programs and warehouse teams worked quickly to organize the new mobile pantry stop to fill the gap until a more permanent pantry location is identified."
Mobile pantries are refrigerated box trucks delivering perishable items such as fresh produce and meat to communities that do not have sufficient brick and mortar pantries. In Fulton, New Beginnings had been one of four agencies that partner with the Food Bank. The Food Bank also provides grocery items to SERVE, the Fulton Soup Kitchen and the Callaway Senior Center at no charge.
Following the fire, SERVE would have been the only food pantry in the community.
In 2016, the Food Bank distributed more than 1.3 million pounds of food in Callaway County with a wholesale value of more than $2.17 million.