STARKVILLE — Starkville Strong has revived its Pantry Hours program under the new name “Neighbors Helping Neighbors.”
Brandi Herrington, executive director for Starkville Strong, said Neighbors Helping Neighbors will serve people in the Golden Triangle who are struggling to find food, no questions asked, since food insecurity often shows up in unexpected ways.
“We don’t ask questions because it is not just people who are under the poverty line who are food insecure,” Herrington said. “We have had teachers, firefighters, policemen, who have said they have had to use the Free Little Food Pantries before. It’s anybody.”
Neighbors Helping Neighbors will be held every fourth Sunday of the month, with the second event starting at 1:30 p.m. on May 28 in the Starkville Daily News parking lot on East Lampkin Street. Herrington said the first event in April was not publicized except through minimal social media posts, but she estimated about 100 people, including 25 volunteers, attended.
Starkville Strong is a nonprofit focused on four main pillars: food insecurity, homelessness, housing insecurity and community advocacy. The organization has been working in the city since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic.
The group regularly hosted a program called Pantry Hours in 2021, where people in need in the community could come “shop” for canned goods, produce and personal items at seven Free Little Food Pantries around town for a few hours.
But Herrington said the program eventually came to a halt due to the constant location changes and lack of volunteers. She said Starkville Strong decided to revive the program now, since the nonprofit is now better prepared to host an event like this consistently.
“The only way that we could revive it is to have a structure of volunteers and people who felt invested in bringing the community together, consistently, in this type of way,” Herrington said. “… We felt like this was the time we could bring it back and do it right.”
Cherri Lightsey, coordinator of missions outreach for FUMC, said she has supported Starkville Strong since it was established, but she started working with Herrington to revive the pantry program in January. FUMC is now the provider of perishable food items for the Neighbors Helping Neighbors events.
“I remembered that they had had a pantry at one time, so I just wanted to see if we could help in doing that again,” Lightsey said. “I’ve been involved with the food pantry before, and it was wonderful to be with our neighbors and to help, and I wanted to try to bring that back again.”
This month’s event will also include a hot dog cookout lunch provided by a local business. During the lunch, attendees will be invited to pick out items of their choosing and to fill two sacks with goods, including non-perishable food items, perishable food items, hygiene products and more.
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You can help your community
Quality, in-depth journalism is essential to a healthy community. The Dispatch brings you the most complete reporting and insightful commentary in the Golden Triangle, but we need your help to continue our efforts. In the past week, our reporters have posted 48 articles to cdispatch.com. Please consider subscribing to our website for only $2.30 per week to help support local journalism and our community.
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