LAHARPE — While Iola and Humboldt have fielded community pantries to serve residents in need, residents in smaller communities in Allen County have had to search a bit harder for help.
That has changed.
A mobile community pantry, organized by the Humboldt Ministerial Alliance, provides monthly aid to residents in Moran, LaHarpe, Elsmore and Savonburg as well as Hope Unlimited clients throughout Allen County.
The aid comes from a Kansas Food Bank-sponsored “Feeding America” campaign.
The organization distributes soon-to-expire perishable food and other surplus groceries from the Chanute Walmart Supercenter, explained the Rev. David Meier, one of the local food bank’s organizers.
The program has been in place since the first of the year and has steadily grown in popularity.
Volunteers from the food bank pick up cases of food each Monday so it can be distributed to the area communities one day a month.
The food is available for Moran residents at the Moran Senior/Community Center the first Friday of each month. Deliveries go to Hope Unlimited in Iola the second Friday; the LaHarpe Baptist Mission Center the third Friday and the old Elsmore Grade School building the fourth Friday; as well as to Humboldt residents on Mondays.
NO INCOME requirements are set for recipients to receive food, said Duwayne and Debbie Bearden, who help organize the LaHarpe distribution center each month. They need only list the number of family members and their ages for record-keeping purposes.
“The Kansas Food Bank does not want to know names,” Meier said.
Fair distribution of the food rests on honesty, to ensure everyone in need gets help.
“We never know until we get the deliveries what type and how much food will be available each month,” Meier said.
One month may have more frozen goods, for example. Cereals and breads comprised much of what was handed out in LaHarpe last week.
“Remember,” Meier said. “This was food that nobody was getting just a few short months ago.”
THE LAHARPE center has more than food available. Volunteers brought cases of random school supplies in August for free distribution. Children’s clothes fill other boxes if needed.
“We understand money may be a little tight some months,” Duwayne Bearden said. “We may hear from somebody who lost his job that month. We’re just glad to be able to help the community.”
