Holts Summit Food Pantry receives $10,817 donation from The Food Bank

FILE: Volunteers process food at the Food Bank for Central and Northeast Missouri in Columbia. The food bank provides food for the Buddy Pack program that feeds needy children in Callaway County.
FILE: Volunteers process food at the Food Bank for Central and Northeast Missouri in Columbia. The food bank provides food for the Buddy Pack program that feeds needy children in Callaway County.

Holts Summit Food Pantry announced Thursday it has received a $10,817 grant from The Food Bank for Central & Northeast Missouri to go toward hunger relief for Callaway County families.

The money will go toward a three-door commercial freezer and three-door commercial cooler.

The grant is part of $179,000 in Capacity Building Grants that The Food Bank is providing to 23 partner agencies in 13 counties. The Holts Summit Food Pantry is one of The Food Bank's 140 partner agencies in its 32-county service area in central and northeastern Missouri.

The Food Bank regularly provides food to the food pantry that is distributed locally. With this funding for the freezer and cooler, made possible by Feeding America, the Holts Summit Food Pantry will be able to hold a larger volume of donations and keep them properly refrigerated so they can be given to more families, said L.P. Cook III, who pastors Union Hill Baptist Church, where the food pantry is hosted.

"Lots of things (our donors) send us either require refrigeration or freezer space, and these particular units are a lot higher volume. It helps us to store food so we can distribute it across several days," Cook said. "Being able to spread that out helps us to take more in so we can give more out to families."

The Food Bank for Central & Northeast Missouri is a regional disaster and hunger relief network that distributes around 30 million pounds of food annually, working with food pantries, soup kitchens, shelters and other agencies to ensure food gets into the hands of those who need it most. To learn more about Holts Summit Food Pantry, visit www.uhbc.us. To learn more about The Food Bank, visit sharefoodbringhope.org.