Storehouse Food Pantry collected over 100 frozen turkeys to give out during their Nov. 21 food distribution.

The food pantry gives out free boxes of food, in addition to other items, every Thursday from 10 a.m. to 12 p.m.

At the time of the interview, about thirty minutes into the Nov. 21 distribution, volunteers had already served 86, with a total for the day of 360 families served, which equates to 1,126 people.

According to Volunteer Coordinator Laurie Campbell, the amount of people given food by Storehouse is continually going up.

“It’s equating now to over 900 people,” says Campbell. “It’s 300 families more or less and it equates to about 900 people. It’s growing every week. We had someone call this morning that was in line for the first time here, so every week the numbers are increasing.”

Storehouse started back in 2018 after Community Resource Coordinator Staria Davison had a vision from God.

“He told me to feed his people,” says Davison. “That’s how it started because I told Him I didn’t like some of His kids, and so I said you’ve got to do something or I’m going to be in stripes in the newspaper. I was in Lowe’s and Laurie’s face was the only one he showed me, and we went to church together and we were church friends. From there it has just grown. We expect even bigger things in 2025.”

In addition to giving food to those who are in need, Campbell says she hopes they can give those who come their dignity back.

“A lot of people when we first started, they would tell us ‘Well I’ve never had to do this before. I feel like I’m begging for food’ and we just try to build that rapport of ‘It’s okay,’” she explained. “There’s struggling people around and we don’t know their story. They may drive a nice car, but we don’t know the story behind that. We don’t know what’s really going on in that household.”

“They’re not strangers,” added Davison. “We call them clients. We don’t say “those people” because “those people” could be me and you. Next week it could be us.”

There are no forms that need to be filled out by clients when they come to receive food, which Campbell says is by design.

“Staria has always said Jesus didn’t ask you for the Social when He said, ‘Come unto me,” says Campbell. “We don’t ask for anything except for how many are in your household so that we can keep up with the numbers so when we talk to the community or whoever we can say ‘this is what’s happening in your community, and this is how many people we are seeing.’”

Though Davison and Campbell acknowledge that they have great partners in Save-A-Lot and DOT Foods, whose Good Neighbor program Storehouse is a part of, among others, they both say there are needs beyond food donations that the food pantry face such as a new tow motor for moving pallets and gravel for their driveway.

“Food is the number one, but you’ve got upkeep of the building, you’ve got upkeep of the parking lot,” says Campbell. “You pay for building insurance; you pay insurance on vehicles and gas that goes in those. There are a lot of things that we have need of that I don’t think the community really realizes exactly what our needs are.”

In addition to individuals who come to the distributions at Storehouse, the food pantry also works with different groups to get food to those who need it.

“We have agencies that come on Thursday morning,” says Campbell. “It may be A+ Medical. It may be Mental Health Co-op. It may be the fire department. Whoever knows a family that may be in need, we try our best to accommodate them, too.”