United We Feed gives back

STARKVILLE, Miss. (WCBI) -I t’s hard to imagine that in our communities there are families without enough to eat.

But finding those people and feeding them is the goal of United We Feed ad the United Way of North Central Mississippi.

It’s the season of giving and that was the trend at the Starkville Community Church where they have collected a lot of food and more continued to come in.

Can after can. And, box after box. There was a lot of food being shelved here Sunday.

But this is not your ordinary grocery store.

These shelves are the midway point between community members who want to help their neighbors – and people who need a little extra help.

United We Feed is a program that combines food drives in the Golden Triangle Area and then sends that food out the door to local pantries in all three counties of the Golden Triangle.

Volunteers have collected staples and supplies like Canned corn, green beans, rice and much more.

Pastor Joe Horan of Starkville Community Church saID the food is going out to those who are in need.

“Yeah, I can think of, you know, several of our local schools do food pantries for students that are going home and maybe just don’t have a ton to eat on the weekends. And so a lot of school kids are getting food and meals out of these food pantries for weekends and holidays. And summertime. I a lot of some of our rural communities in the outskirts of Oktibbeha County, that are underserved by grocery stores and by access to food are going to benefit from the food that’s been given to this program,” Horan said.

Other organizations benefit as well.

“All the local food banks will be coming in to take the food and the stock themselves up,” Horan said.

Angela Baker, The co-chair of the United We Feed Project, said several smaller drives help the project reach its goal.

“Okay, we hit the Baptist Student Union on campus did a food drive for us, Southwire company in Starkville did a food drive for us, the freshman edge program at Mississippi State did a drive for us, and we had several other organizations on campus that did a draft for us as well. And we also as a collaborative group did big drives for the month of November,” said Baker.

Baker said that this is the most rewarding project that she does.

“It makes me feel wonderful, as well as everyone else, I’ve worked on this project for six years now, and this is the most rewarding project I’ve ever done for any organization that I’ve been a part of. It makes me feel great just to give back to the community as well as everyone else. We all love doing it. That’s why we do it,” Baker said.

Baker said they estimate to have around 25 tons of food to be distributed to many different pantries — this food is expected to have a shelf life of five to six months.

Pantries will be able to pick up the food starting Monday through Wednesday.