By JOE YOUNG
During the recent pandemic, many food pantries closed for a time to avoid contact with people and to stop the spread of infection.
However, the Robert Neal Food Pantries, operated by Calvary Chapel at Parchman, never closed. They served their own clients in Tallahatchie and Sunflower counties, and clients in adjacent areas whose regular pantries had closed. This was done through drive-thru pantries.
Because of this, Feeding America, through the Mississippi Food Network, sent tremendous shipments of food to the pantries at Parchman, Charleston and Glendora. No one was turned away.
Now that the pandemic is over, most food pantries are open again. They are receiving the food necessary to provide for their clients. The Robert Neal Food Pantry Network is receiving less, because nonresident clients can now go to their regular places of service.
Effective Jan. 1, pantries at Parchman, Charleston and Glendora began only serving clients from Tallahatchie and Sunflower counties.
Though they will serve anyone else from Sunflower County, they will not serve Drew clients, who have their own Drew food pantry, also affiliated with Feeding America.
The East Tallahatchie County pantry, Faith Food Pantry, will continue to serve people in the Oakland area of Yalobusha County, because part of Oakland is in Tallahatchie County, and none of that area has access to other food pantries.
Coahoma countians may not come to the pantry at Calvary Chapel, Parchman, unless they live in the isolated area of Coahoma County between Tutwiler and Rome.
Because the counties of Quitman, Coahoma, Panola, Bolivar, Leflore and Grenada have one or more food pantries each, nobody from those counties will be served at Parchman, Charleston or Glendora.
Food once sent to Robert Neal Food Pantries has been discontinued, and is now being sent to those nearby counties, as their pantries have reopened.
Robert Neal Food Pantries do not deliver. If you hear of someone delivering to a client, it was an individual act of kindness and not the action of the food pantry network. Most volunteers are elderly and unable to deliver food.
It is hoped that former clients will have this information before they make an expensive trip to Robert Neal Food Pantries and are turned away.
