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Food pantry needs your help, now

Food pantry needs your help, now

The bottom line for Messiah’s Food Pantry is that it’s run smack into that line.

“The food pantry is at a place where we don’t have operating expenses for the next month,” the Rev. Debi Lincoln said on Tuesday. The next month, by the way, is December. There isn’t a month cushion. A problem the pantry ran into this year is competition for grant money. Lots of competition for grant money. And in the end, the pantry did not win as much grant money as it has in the past, Lincoln said.

So, she’s asking that if people are thinking about giving money for a charity to “please consider our food pantry.”

food insecurity, whatever you choose to call it, is still stubbornly rooted in our community. On a monthly basis, the pantry serves about 832 households, Lincoln said.

“Included in that we feed more than 1,000 children and youth under 18,” she said.

Also within the number of households, the pantry serves more than 100 elderly people.

always welcome at the pantry, although you need to keep in mind it cannot accept food past its expiration date.

Financial donations, however, go farther in terms of feeding people in need. The pantry is about to buy food from the Northeast Iowa Food Bank at 29 cents per pound. That’s across the board, regardless of what the food is.

The food pantry is also trying to build an endowment fund to make the organization self-sustaining in terms of ongoing operating expenses. Think electricity.

to drop off donations at the pantry, its open hours are noon to 3 p.m. on Mondays and Fridays. On Wednesdays, it is open from 9 a.m. to noon.

If you’d like to mail a donation, send a check to Messiah’s Food Pantry, 102 N. Main St. Charles City, IA 50616.

If you have any questions, Lincoln invites you to call her at 641-257-1119.

Bits and pieces

The news from the Salvation Army bell ringing front is that Charles Citians seem to really like to ring bells. The charity has filled its schedule of bell ringers. Way to go.

two weeks, we’ve doubled up on

in the Monday editions. The syndicates send us six days worth of strips, and we have five editions. So, we’re putting those scheduled for Saturday and Monday in the Monday edition. So, no longer will “Alley Oop” readers be missing out on a chapter in that serial.

I still would like the opportunity to publish some locally drawn strips, whether a one-time thing by an artist or a longer term. If you’re interested, contact me.

About meatballs

A sweet card came in the mail a while back. A hummingbird graced the cover, and inside, there was this little story from a reader named Joyce; “My 5-year-old great granddaughter was having small meatballs for supper. It didn’t look like she ate any, (but) she said she ate them all.

“I said, ‘It doesn’t look like it.’ “She said: ‘I took a little bite out of each of them. So, I ate them all.’”

Joyce wrote that her great granddaughter once said: “Now that I’m 5, I know things that you don’t know.”

Joyce asked her “What?”

“That trees talk,” she said.

wrote that when she is unhappy about something done by her 4-year-old great grandson, he points “to the smiling picture of me on the refrigerator and says, you should be like that.”

Joyce, I keep the card on my desk and since I just can’t top that at the moment, I’m signing off with a big ol’ thank you.

Reach Managing Editor Chris Baldus at cbaldus@charlescitypress. com or through the mail at 801 Riverside Drive, Charles City, IA 50616.

Chris Baldus

Managing Editor

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