Several projects are either ongoing or the verge of beginning, from #TackleHunger Month to the Deer Project, to Christmas Boxes, to #GivingTuesday.
October is #TackleHunger Month, as Brown County comes together to provide food for the less fortunate during the holiday season. Food is collected at a variety of locations across the county this month which will be distributed during the month of December.
“We renamed that about three years ago to capitalize on Brown County’s love for high school football,” said Good Samaritan Ministries Executive Director Leesa Stephens. “And it really makes sense because we want people in the community to be on our team as we tackle food insecurity in Brown County. For one organization or group to collect tall this would be a little difficult so we like to tell people to get your squad involved and get in the game.”
Churches, businesses, schools, civic organizations and other groups are assigned a specific item that would be used to prepare a traditional Christmas dinner. These items are collected and used to pack Christmas boxes that are distributed in December to all pantry clients.
Items requested on the #TackleHunger Community Food Drive List and collection points include:
* Green Beans: Brownwood Elementary Schools
* Cornbread Mix: Coggin Intermediate and Area Middle Schools
* Black-Eyed Peas: Bangs, Early, May, Zephyr Elementaries
* Cake Mix-Frosting: HPU Staff, Medical Community
* Stuffing Mix: Business Community
* Canned Fruit: Area High Schools
* Canned Pumpkin: Church Community
* Canned Sweet Potatoes: Church Community
* Boxes of Jello: HPU, TSTC, Ranger Students
“We’ve been told by local grocery stores that some items might be in limited supply due to supply chain shortages, so we’re excited to see folks really get behind this,” Stephens said. “We’re planning for 900 boxes and some of those boxes will have two of the same items. For instance, we need 1,800 pouches of cornbread mix, we need 900 boxes of stuffing mix, we need 1,800 cans of green beans.”
Stephens stated the items will be collected by GSM Friday, Nov. 6, then the next stage of the project begins.
“Starting the next week we schedule groups to come in and pack those Christmas boxes,” Stephens said. “We like to give people in the community the chance to really be hands-on with helping. Anyone that wants to bring a group we are social distancing and we’re probably going to keep the groups a little smaller this year. We’re open to school groups, church groups, family groups, business groups. We do our packing on Monday nights and Wednesday nights so you can call 325-643-2273 and talk to Heather and she’ll schedule those. We do have one Saturday in November, the 21st, where we’re going to try and have about four time slots that day. We hope to get all 900 of those boxes packed so that on Tuesday, Dec. 1 we can start passing them out.”
Stephens welcome the involvement of any volunteers who wish to participate.
“We’ve been allowing volunteers to come back since July and we need volunteers to make Christmas boxes, we need volunteers to push the baskets of food in December,” Stephens said. “If there’s students who need National Honor Society hours or people who need philanthropy hours for organizations, call Stacy Walker at 325-642-2273.”
The Deer Project is also underway as it began Oct. 3 with the start of bow season, kicks into high gear Nov. 7 with the start of rifle season and runs through Jan. 3.
“The Deer Project is really an ingenious program as it pairs hunters and processors with Good Samaritan Ministries in the fight against food insecurity,” Stephens said. “All a hunter has to do during bow season or regular rifle season is take their legally tagged, legally harvested deer over to one of these six processors and tell them you want it to go to Good Samaritan Ministries and there’s no charge at all for the hunter. Our processors aren’t all in Brown County but they understand the meat stays here in Brown County.”
Processors taking part in the Deer Project include:
* M&M Deer Processing (Zephyr),
* Lone Star Taxidermy & Wild Game Processing (Owens)
* Santa Anna Custom Processing (Santa Anna)
* Fulldraw Legends Processing (Rising Star)
* Potter’s Taxidermy & Wildgame Processing (Cross Plains)
Anyone who drop offs a deer can sign up to win one of two $250 Visa gift cards that GSM will give away in January.
“We think this year is going to be bigger than last year, and last year we collected 11,000 pounds,” Stephens said.
The Abundant Living-Simple Giving luncheon will take place Wednesday, Oct. 28 from 11 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. at the GSM Food Warehouse at 305 Clark Street, and carry out will be available. Deer chili, baked potatoes, Fritos and all the trimmings will be served. The purpose of Abundant Living-Simple Giving is requesting 100 friends donate $100 to cover the processing costs for the Deer Project.
#GivingTuesday follows on Dec. 1, which is the national day of giving back to communities after Thanksgiving celebrations and Black Friday and Cyber Monday shopping. Individuals are encouraged to give generously at the end of the year. All donations to Good Samaritan Ministries are tax deductible.
From Tuesday, Dec. 1 through Wednesday, Dec. 23 Christmas box distribution will take place. GSM invites businesses, families, church and student groups to come and help push buggies of food out to clients’ cars.
Also this year, GSM has distributed 185 food boxes over 15 campuses and five school districts with its Food for Thought program. Food for Thought consists of site coordinators on each campus working with teachers and staff members to identify students who might qualify for weekend food assistance. Bags of food are sent home by Friday with qualifying students. Each bag contains approximately 60 percent of a child’s weekend nutritional needs including:
* Proteins (beef sticks, meat kits)
* Whole grain cereals
* Shelf stable milk
* Juice boxes
* Pudding cups
* Peanut butter crackers
* Fruit bars
