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Local residents and volunteers alike braved strong winter winds and frigid temperatures well below freezing to help provide food at a monthly mobile food pantry.
“The need goes beyond cold or heat. The need is always there,” Joseph Solomon said. He is a member of the Killeen City Council and executive director of the Refugee Corporation, which organizes refugee mobile food pantries. “We try to be here as much as possible.
“We can brave the cold to feed those who are truly hungry.”
The Refugee Corporation, a division of Killeen House of Christian Prayer, operates food pantries on the third Saturday of each month, typically located in Killeen, Copperas Cove, Harker Heights and Nolanville.
A food pantry was set up in the Hettie Halstead Elementary School parking lot last Saturday.
“We want to serve this area because it’s a neighborhood,” Solomon said.
Located on North Main Street, Hettie Halstead Elementary School is surrounded by the city’s residential neighborhoods.
“It’s important for us to be in an area that attracts people from all over the world, of course,” Solomon said. “If you come here, we’ll give it to you. No questions asked. We just want it out.”
Refuge Mobile Food Pantry events are always drive-thru events, where registration is done verbally and volunteers will come from your car to get the information you need.
Each family receiving food from the mobile pantry will receive a food box containing approximately 50 to 60 pounds of various items.
“We will also be giving away some of the turkeys we still have,” Solomon said. “We give out produce and dry goods. So it’s a combination of meat, produce and dry goods.”
Volunteers work diligently each morning at food pantry events to ensure that all items are distributed to each passing vehicle.
Maria Joseph, who has been helping out at the Refuge Mobile Food Pantry for about seven years, is one such volunteer.
“This is a great way to give back,” Joseph said before cars started rolling through the line. “It’s fun. I enjoy doing it and being able to see how people enjoy what they have. And I’m glad that so many of them are so grateful. It’s great to be able to reach out and help them in some way because we know they’re doing well.”
Joseph agreed with Solomon’s feeling that the need goes beyond the cold.
“At one point we joked that we were like the post office: we’re open no matter the weather,” she said. “If we’re supposed to be here, we’ll be here. But if it’s really snowing, we might not be.”
Each mobile food pantry event requires dozens of volunteers, and Joseph said she’s glad to have the support.
“It’s great to meet so many people and see new faces emerge,” she said. “You’ll be able to add more people to your friends and family.”
One such addition to the “family” of volunteers is Army Maj. Kevin Chestnut, who works out of the III Corps headquarters at Fort Cavazos and was helping with the mobile food depot for the first time Saturday.
“Personally, I would like to get more involved in faith-based organizations because of my Christian faith,” said Chesnutt, who lives in Copperas Cove. “But if I can reach out and be a light in someone’s life, be a light in their world, and make their life a little bit easier — not just by serving in the military, but by helping people in need. It’s okay to serve.”
Mr. Chesnutt explained why he feels volunteering is so important for military personnel.
“We military personnel move every two (or three) years, and it’s very difficult to establish roots in the local community wherever we go,” he said. “Community service and donations are one of the great ways to not only represent the military, but also to re-establish roots in your community and begin grassroots development for yourself and your family.”
Return to Copperas Bay
At this point, it’s unclear when the next mobile food pantry will be in Copperas Cove, but Solomon said they try to come quarterly.
He explained why Copperas Cove is a regular part of the mobile food pantry rotation.
“We will never forget Cove,” he said. “This is where my kids go to school. I’ve lived here for a long time, so I have a bit of an attachment to Cobh. There’s a place in my heart for Cobh, and here I’ll always be a Cove guy because I’ve done so much.”
Solomon also explained that the vision is to make the mobile food pantry a weekly event. He had that vision for quite some time.
Asked what it would take to make that happen, Solomon said he would likely partner with churches and other nonprofits and use their sites to conduct small-scale weekly distributions.
“The reason I say this is because the model I saw was at Shepherd’s Heart in Waco,” Solomon said. “We had a chance to go there and talk to the manager there. He’s given me a tour and they’re doing his 16 streams a week.”
Solomon believes this vision has the potential to take root in the region.
“I believe if we can start one church (or) one organization or one nonprofit at a time, it can happen,” he says.
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