Midwest Family Lending has chosen to support Adel Food Pantry in the month of December and we encourage you to as well.
The Good Samaritan Food Pantry serves the Adel-DeSoto-Minburn and the Van Meter school districts. We serve nearly 100 families each month. We provide 110+ weekend backpack meals to the ADM and Van Meter schools, this is up from last year. Last year we served only ADM K-5 and a few at the high school this year we opened it to all students K-12 and also Van Meter. Over the summer we provided 250+ weekly meal packages to kids through our summer feed the kids program. At Thanksgiving we provided baskets to 100 families this year and will do it again at Christmas
The Good Samaritan Food Pantry in Adel will soon have a new home. Due to the increased services offered at the food pantry, we have outgrown our current space at the United Methodist Church. Over the past year, we have almost doubled our kid’s programs and continue to serve more families on a monthly basis.
Each week, Wal-Mart in Grimes and Fresh Thyme from West Des Moines, are donating fresh produce, bread, eggs and soon to expire items. Last week we had 65 large boxes of food from Wal-Mart alone. This is a mixed blessing because it is awesome for the clients we serve but a challenge for our volunteers to find space and storage for all this food.
Last summer, the executive board approached Tim Canney of the ADM school board, to see if there was space at the ADM Administration Center (old middle school) to house the pantry. He took it to the school board and after much discussion and legal review; a lease for the old lunchroom space was completed. ADM is willing to partner with us to help support the Feed the Kids programs because it is hard to educate a hungry child.
Improvements to the space will need to be made – additional wiring, painting, appliances, furniture etc. that we hope to have completed within the first quarter of 2017. To cover these expenses, we are in the process of writing grants and seeking donations from corporations in Dallas County.
Many people will be needed to help complete the work and the move. Please let us know if you would like to participate with time, talent or donations toward this move.
To volunteer contact Celia at 515-423-0753. If you would like to donate to the renovation project please contact Keith Troester at gsfptreasurer@gmail.com or mail your donation to Good Samaritan Food Pantry 115 S. 10th St. Adel, IA 50003. Your donation is tax deductible.
Also, please keep us in your prayers. We need all the help we can get.