Eleven local drives fill food pantry at Colfax

Eleven independent food drives around Colfax sent in a giant wave of supplies to the Colfax food pantry during the holiday season. F.I.S.H. food pantry director Hannah Walker expects the stock to last until July.

“I can’t believe one community can support all those drives,” Walker told the Gazette.

Typical drives included the annual Boy Scout food drive, the Rosauer’s Hunger Bag drive and the cans from Jennings Elementary Can Race.

Four churches also conducted food drives.

St. Patrick’s Church Altar Society used a stocking stuffer format which had people flocking in with helpful stocking stuffers like art or bath supplies.

“That was a biggie because we have the most glamorous Christmas stockings in our food boxes this year,” Walker said. Donated coloring books, water colors, new shampoo, fun bath soaps, children’s games and puzzles were put into the Christmas stockings people received with their Christmas food boxes.

Onecho Bible Church members also donated many stocking stuffer supplies in addition to food and toiletries.

County employees in the treasurer’s office for the second year in a row collected cans of food donated by taxpayers, courthouse employees and others. Walker said the courthouse donations in November came in at a most opportune time because stocks were low. Walker said she was days away from having to purchase more food supplies when the courthouse donations arrived.

“That actually saved our bacon,” she said.

Thrifty Grandmothers Shop and the Whitman Hospital employees also collected several hundred pounds of food. Walker said the hospital brought over an SUV full of cans, more than 750 pounds of canned food.

The pantry each month gives out bags of food to families or individuals in need. The Community Action Center in downtown Colfax distributes the food, often in amounts that will feed a family for several days. The pantry aims to give out balanced meals, so a diverse selection of donations is needed.

Walker said that diversity is definitely in stock after the number of food drives. With so many people responding to the pantry’s ongoing list of needs, they have everything from boxed pasta to diapers to frozen meat. She believes they will be able to sustain that level of quality meals for many months because of the sheer number of cans taken in.

“That shelf space is really filled. It’s just amazing. The pantry is going to run for a long time. It’s good stuff too like marinara sauce, pasta, tuna fish and cereal,” she said.

The pantry tries to supply personal hygiene supplies too. The Community Bible Church set up a giving tree and invited members to leave food and, in particular, personal hygiene items under the tree. Walker said she received a hefty amount of helpful toiletries like brushes, toothpaste, baby diapers, shampoo and other items from the church.

“They were really emphasizing personal hygiene so we got a lot of those items which we were able to put in as stocking stuffers,” Walker said.

She said she personally was amazed at the generosity and warm spirit of the Colfax community.