November 17, 2023
By: Dwayne Page
During a season that is traditionally filled with festive gatherings and holiday meals, many people will not be able to afford food for themselves or their families. For those people, God’s Food Pantry is a source for help.
For 16 years the pantry has provided food and other essentials to help meet the needs of the medically frail and elderly, children, veterans, the homeless, and the working poor and not just during the holidays, but year-round. The pantry receives no local, state, or federal government funding but is able to operate from donations of caring individuals and businesses, among others.
Pat Zornow, God’s Food Pantry volunteer and coordinator, said hundreds of families are served per month including many who receive home deliveries.
Food is distributed on the first Friday after the first Thursday and on the third Friday of every month from 9:00 a.m. – 12:00 noon from the pantry at 430 East Broad, Smithville in a drive through pickup line. A long line of cars forms along East Broad Street near the pantry every time the twice a month event is held. Smithville Police are always on site to assist with traffic control and the sheriff’s department often provides inmate work crews under guarded supervision by correctional officers to help pantry volunteers with the distribution. Aside from the regularly scheduled food pickups, emergency distributions are made 24/7 when requests come in for food. On the first Friday the food boxes consist basically of staples with perishables and the third Friday is the staples, perishables, and meats including right now turkeys, roasting chickens, etc. because of Thanksgiving upcoming.
Volunteers at the pantry are quite busy on delivery and distribution days. Thursday was home delivery day.
“Their food boxes are not skimpy. They get a lot. We’re helping to feed them,” said Zornow. “The boxes are filled with staples including crackers, cereals, canned goods, milk, desserts, breads etc. All their basics are included. We also put meats in there and microwaveable dinners. Of course, we know the people we deliver too. Many of them have been referred to us. We have their names, addresses, phone numbers, and the number of people in their family to be served, and what their special needs are as far as medical issues and what we have to be aware of because some of these people are on soft diets or have hypertension, diabetes, heart issues and things like that so we specialize for them. Some people we serve have cancer, so we include cans of Ensure for them. We look at the whole diet. Why feed them something that is going to hurt them” added Zornow.
Because of inflation and the economy, Zornow said the pantry has seen an increase in the number of people needing help.
“We are getting more and more referrals because of the economy. Many of these people are basically starving in their homes. People are not surviving without us They have no cars. They are elderly. They are medically frail. In some cases, grandparents are raising grandchildren, and they have no place to go. We are basically the only delivery service in the area,” said Zornow.
Support for the pantry comes from a variety of sources. “We operate off 100% donations from individuals, churches, factories, businesses, and civic organizations”.
People come from far and near to be served by the pantry and Zornow said no one is means tested or questioned, but if anyone shows up intoxicated, using profanity or causing trouble they will be turned away.
The pantry is currently staffed by several volunteers who donate their time to help including cancer survivor Chris League.
“I am a cancer survivor. Two years ago, I had esophageal stage 4 cancer. I underwent 28 radiation and 28 chemotherapy treatments and wasn’t able to have surgery but thank God I am cured today and feel good. After my healing I committed to God that I would help others, so I am here for life as a volunteer at God’s Food Pantry,” said League