Warden Food Pantry helps keep community fed

WARDEN — The Warden Food Pantry is serving the needs of the hungry in its community.

Three churches operate the food pantry — the Warden Community Church, the Warden Assembly of God and the Queen of All Saints Catholic Church. The churches take turns staffing the food pantry each month and ensure that it is supplied.

“April is the Catholic church’s turn,” said Ed Backell, pastor of Warden Community Church and one of the food pantry board members. “At the beginning of the month, we were a little short. Someone donated $200. They went out and stocked the shelves.”

Usually when the shelves of the food pantry are getting bare, they are able to hold a food drive and restock the shelves. But with the COVID-19 crisis, they have not been able to get food the way they normally would.

“Normally, a food drive would stock the building really well for two months,” Backell said. “Now with social distancing, it’s a little challenging.”

Church volunteers are having to go out and purchase the food necessary to stock the pantry for the month.

Beans and rice are two of the things that the food pantry uses more quickly than other food items. It also has a hard time keeping ready-to-eat meals on the shelves.

“This is where we find our biggest challenge, getting meals that are ready to eat, like cans of chili or beef stew,” Backell said. “Anything that a kid who is left on his own can dump into a bowl and microwave. Anything with protein like that is more expensive. Those stocks are usually low.”

Because of the limited amount of food that has been on the shelves, the food pantry has been limiting the number of times a family can come to twice a month. In the past, they used to be able to come every week.

“When we were giving out one bag of food a week, the shelves were empty all the time,” Backell said. If the pantry could do a food drive, it would take a day and a half to refill the shelves, he added.

In place of a food drive, Warden City Hall is allowing donations for the food pantry to be dropped off during business hours. Both food and monetary donations are being accepted. Checks can be made out to the Warden Food Pantry. The food pantry is open Thursdays from 3:30 to 4:30 p.m.