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 Articles
The Galveston County Daily News - Gleanings growing its food bank
by Rhiannon Meyers TEXAS CITY - Every Tuesday morning, Cici Caldwell joins dozens of others carrying laundry baskets, empty banana crates and cardboard boxes to collect fresh fruits and vegetables handed out by volunteers in a church parking lot. Caldwell, 60, started coming to the weekly Gleanings from the Harvest food distribution a year-and-a-half ago after she had life-altering breast cancer surgery that forced her to stop working. When Caldwell first started coming to Rising Star Baptist Church in La Marque on Tuesday mornings, there were 90 people - 100 at most - collecting fresh produce from food bank trucks. Today there are 200 people waiting in line for free food in the church parking lot, Caldwell said. That spike in Galveston County people needing food - an increase that has been caused by the slumping economy and Hurricane Ike - demonstrates a countywide food bank is "sorely needed," Allan Matthews, vice chair for Gleanings from the Harvest, said. The organization is in the process of renovating a 11,500-square-foot building, once occupied by the Texas City Sun, to house Galveston County's first countywide food bank, said Mark Davis, executive director and co-founder of Gleanings from the Harvest. "This has been talked about for 20 years," he said. Texas City agreed in 2007 to lease the empty building, 624 Fourth Ave. N., to Gleanings from the Harvest, and work has been ongoing since then to ready the facility as a "one-stop shop" for food, personal hygiene and cleaning supplies. Once finished, the new facility will boost the organization's ability to store and distribute food, including refrigerated and frozen items like dairy products, meat and eggs. Gleanings from the Harvest, a nonprofit organization that partners with the Houston Food Bank, stores food at a small building in Galveston at 903 53rd St. that was flooded when Hurricane Ike came ashore at Galveston on Sept. 13. The Texas City location also means the food bank is less vulnerable to future storms, Davis said. Unlike Galveston, Texas City, which is protected by a levee system, didn't flood during Hurricane Ike. While Davis hopes to have the Texas City food bank open by Dec. 31, the completion of the facility hinges on donations and help from volunteers such as the group from St. Phillip's Lutheran Church in Minnesota who spent a week earlier this year framing the vacant building for offices. The Galveston office is expected to remain open after the Texas City warehouse food bank opens. Demand for food certainly has increased and likely will grow even more in the coming months and years as the U.S. economy recovers, Davis said. Gleanings from the Harvest volunteers, in the first three months of 2009, distributed food from trucks in La Marque, San Leon, Texas City and Galveston to 13,261 families - almost as many as the 15,998 families who received food from the organization's mobile distribution in 2008. The opening of a larger food bank on the mainland is an excellent opportunity, especially for those Galveston residents displaced by Hurricane Ike, Caldwell said. "We are so fortunate to have this food bank," she said. "I've personally seen its blessing on a lot of people." +++ By The Numbers Gleanings from the Harvest Mobile food distribution 2008 (Feb. 12- Dec. 30) Total families served: 15,998 2009 (Jan. 1 to March 31) Total families served: 13,261 Source: Gleanings from the Harvest +++ At A Glance WHAT: Hunger Awareness Dinner WHEN: 6 p.m. Saturday WHERE: Moody Memorial First United Methodist Church, 2803 53rd St., Galveston Cost: Advance tickets available for $25 for adults and $15 for children 17 and younger; tickets at the door are $30 for adults and $20 for children. .
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