Food For The Soul

Food Insecurity in Starkville, MS

By Kathleen Rodgers, Photos by Kathleen Rodgers

Food brings people together. Some people are picky about their food, and some are adventurous, but almost everyone loves food. We use food to celebrate holidays: candy on Valentines and Halloween, BBQ for Memorial Day, Labor Day, and July 4th, and turkey or ham on Thanksgiving and Christmas. Families and friends gather in the kitchen or around the grill to enjoy each other’s company while preparing their feast. Whole parties are dedicated to gathering around food. We love food; it brings us together!

However, for some, food is not a wonderfully delicious addition to their day. For some, having enough food is an insecurity; that is, they do not have the resources to secure enough food for themselves or their family. According to Feeding America, food insecurity refers to the USDA’s measure of lack of access, at times, to enough food for an active, healthy life for all household members and limited or uncertain availability of nutritionally adequate foods. Food insecure households are also not necessarily food insecure all the time. This insecurity may reflect a household’s need to make trade-offs between basic needs, such as housing or medical bills in order to purchase food. 

A quick google search shows that in Mississippi, 559,350 people are struggling with hunger, and of that total, 162,150 are children. 

That’s 1 in 4 children. In Oktibbeha County, 1,740 children are food insecure; that’s 1 in 5 children. So if you were to go to Walmart today and walk past five children while you were shopping, one of those children might be from a home where food isn’t easily accessed, and the grocery trip they are currently taking could be a financial stress for that family.

Last month, Charity shared an article with a list of the food pantries we have here in Starkville. While this list isn’t exhaustive, it covers many organizations and churches in town that offer food assistance. We discovered and are still learning that many in our community answer the call to help those who are food insecure. My husband, Josh, wanted me to take some photos to go along with Charity’s article, so one Tuesday last month, we drove around town to the various food pantries to snap a few pictures. We learned so much more about our town’s heart for those who need basic essentials.

We took photos of the standard food boxes spread around town where people can drop items off, and those in need can go pick items up whenever they want. This is probably the easiest way to give to those who need it. Whenever you’re in the store, pick up a few extra, non-perishable items and drop them off in the boxes. Then we drove over to Peter’s Rock church and spoke with the food pantry coordinator there. She was in the process of organizing brown paper bags full of their standard items for pick up later that day. They had shelves full of canned vegetables, boxed cereal and noodles, and bags of rice. There were probably 50 brown bags lined up on the tables waiting to be picked up. 

After Peter’s Rock, we stopped by Calvary Baptist Church. Seeing all of the work and commitment that goes into keeping up food pantries here in Starkville is amazing, but Calvary Baptist was the stop that really pulled at my heartstrings and made me want to write this article. We arrived at Calvary and interrupted someone moving chairs from one room to another to explain who we were and why we were there. He excitedly exclaimed, “Oh, boy! You need to talk to Grant; let’s find him.” I thought the “oh boy” was a little odd, but we were strangers showing up at a church on a Tuesday afternoon during a pandemic. I found out just a few moments later that the “oh boy” wasn’t directed towards us. It was directed towards Grant, the lead pastor of Calvary Baptist Church, who also refers to himself as “eager to share about ministries he loves.” Within seconds of us asking to photograph their food panty, Grant was walking us all around the church to give us the background about their pantry and how it came to be. 

The first place he took us was a small room right next to the entry with three large filing cabinets. Two cabinets were labeled “Active,” and one was labeled “Inactive,” and each drawer was labeled alphabetically. Grant opened the second drawer of the “Active” filing cabinets, and it was full to the brim with files. He pulled a few files out for us to look at and explained to us what they were. Every time someone comes to their food pantry, Calvary opens a profile on that person or family. They get a folder labeled with their name, and every time that person or family comes back, their folder gets updated with new information. 

These files contain basic information, such as name, address, points of contact, and who lives in their household. There are also spots for medical issues that someone may have. Calvary will also help with bills for people as needed, on a case by case basis. At the bottom of this form, there is a prayer request section. 

Each person who comes through to get a bag of food gets counseling and prayer. After looking through the files, Grant took us over to a storage closet that used to be the entire food pantry until they outgrew it. This room was filled with canned vegetables, fruit, boxes of cereal, and grains. All of this was storage for the official food pantry where the people go to load up their bags. Grant also showed us a small closet under some stairs that was completely full of cans of green beans; I’m talking 500+ cans of green beans. He said whenever people do a canned food drive, that was the most common vegetable they got. 

After we saw these two closets, Grant took us to the official room they use for the food pantry. This was a small room lined with tables, and each table was labeled and filled with certain items. People were given bags with letters on them, and each letter corresponded with a table. People could then go to the tables and put a certain number of items into their bags. This method allowed for everyone to get enough of each item while still being able to pick which items they needed or didn’t need. The takeaway from this visit wasn’t how awesome the food pantry was, though. Calvary’s food pantry is only open during certain times, and due to the availability of supplies and workers, each family can only come through every four months. Grant said it perfectly; “Two bags of food do not four months make.”

Calvary is doing a very special ministry by providing what they can for a food pantry, but exactly like Grant said, two bags of necessities is not going to fully feed a family for four months. Yet there were people in those files that have been coming to Calvary’s food pantries for 10+ years. I believe they aren’t just coming for the food; I believe they are coming because they feel the love of Christ and they feel taken care of by the people of Calvary Baptist.

After my visit with Calvary, I knew I wanted to research more about the churches in our community that have a passion for serving others and serving the least of these. When we found out that Pinelake also has a food pantry called The Care Center, I called them up and met with Ryan, the Children’s Pastor, to see how they run their ministry. The Care Center is located in a small warehouse on Willow Road, nestled between two barbershops. You walk first into the main office area with a reception table, and then you move to a back room with tables set up for counseling and prayer. When you turn to the left and go through a doorway, it opens up into a large room lined with shelves and deep freezers full of food. 

Pinelake partners with Mississippi Food Network and local grocery stores to procure their stock of foods. The Care Center is not just a Starkville ministry project; this is Pinelake’s mission. Every campus of Pinelake has a “Care Center” for food distribution, with the exception of Oxford’s campus, as they are in search of a facility. 

The Starkville campus serves 100-175 families in our community. Since Pinelake partners with the Mississippi Food Network, they have to keep an accurate count of how many people need boxes, so each family has a record for their participation. The records are kept for up to 3 years, then the process starts over, and records get updated. The Care Center is open on the first and third Thursday of each month between 5-7 PM. Each family is on a schedule for which Thursday they can come get their box. 

Pinelake volunteers prepackage their boxes to ensure that each family gets the proper amounts of food for their family size.

Ryan mentioned that one month, during the Covid Quarantine, they served food boxes to 160 families on the same day. Because of Covid, Pinelake can’t always meet face to face with every family for counseling, so when 160 families showed up that day during quarantine, they rolled up their warehouse door and like a well-oiled machine, staff and volunteers hand-delivered boxes to everyone’s car as they drove through. God has certainly blessed Pinelake with people who are willing to serve!

Another really amazing aspect of The Care Center is its partnership with local grocery stores. The Mississippi Food Network provides large quantity, non-perishable items to the Care Center, but our local stores provide perishable foods that can easily be frozen. This includes meat, bread, fresh vegetables and fruit, cheese, and milk. Remember how I mentioned that their warehouse was lined with shelves and deep freezers? Well, those deep freezers are full of frozen foods. So while Calvary provides families with staple long term foods and products like toilet paper and feminine items, Pinelake has the ability to provide a full meal of nutritious food. 

Pinelake does not offer to help pay bills directly, but Ryan explains it so well when he says, “let us take the burden of a grocery visit and help feed your family so that you can pay your bill without worry.”

Even though the churches in Starkville have their own separate ministries and don’t work together directly, the churches in our community are serving “the least of these” from every aspect imaginable. Isn’t that how the Church is supposed to work? Serve others with the tools you have been given, and if one church doesn’t have the ability to provide something specific, we can rest assured in Christ that he has provided another church to fill that need.