BRYAN, TX — The Brazos church pantry has seen a 10% percent increase of families served in 2020—this increase may have come from the unexpected effects of COVID. What they do count on is the general increase of families they see during the holiday season.
”We do increase in numbers as far as how many clients come to get food from us this time of year. Historically we’ve always increased during these... During the holiday time," said Andrea Derrig leader and board member of the Brazos Church Pantry.
With the increase of need, the church pantry is doing a few special things this year to bring the holiday cheer.
”One of the things coming up is were going to give turkeys away this year through a drawing we don’t have enough turkeys to give every client but we want to make sure that they're given out on a fair and even basis,” said Derrig.
This holiday season all hands are on deck as the Houston food bank has partnered with the Brazos Valley to conduct a holiday food drive at the st. Andrew church.
”They have a holiday distribution that they offer in their area and they extended it to our area so we coordinated with one of our local partners to do a holiday distribution here in the Brazos Valley," said Shannon Avila programs manager for Brazos Valley food bank
The first 200 people to sign up on the Houston food bank website can expect a holiday treat—volunteers like Gabrielle Woodcox say there is no better reward than seeing how her service directly helps families in need.
”Sometimes when you do things like that if you don’t actually see the people it’s impacting it’s like oh just like whatever, but whenever you’re seeing the people it’s going to it feels a lot more genuine because you’re actually seeing how it’s directly impacting,” said Gabrielle Woodcox a food bank volunteer.
To ensure the food pantry is only giving out what you need they created an outdoor system of delivering food to their clients.
”Right now, we're serving them at curbside so we go out to their cars we ask them to wear a mask and we wear a mask and we try to distance ourselves enough to where they're not threatened in any way by the virus from us,” said Derrig.
The Brazos church food pantry has your health as their number one priority as they continue to support the Brazos valley and their mission to end hunger in America.