Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...

With increased usage, the Suffolk Salvation Army Community Center’s food pantry is emptier than usual. Normally, Christmas donations to the pantry would last through the summer, but there are already empty shelves this year.

Adrian Twinney, Suffolk Salvation Army Corps administrator, said the pantry relies solely on donations because there isn’t enough money in the budget for employees to supply it themselves.

After hearing about this, the Suffolk Sheriff’s Department hosted a food drive at the Walmart on Main Street last Thursday, May 1. Sheriff David Miles said they were encouraging people who passed by to buy extra food to donate to the pantry.

“It was a great opportunity to engage with our citizens, but also they realized that they know that there are others that are in need, and they were happy to support, trying to help others, which I think makes them the superstars of this whole thing,” Miles said.

Adrian said Twinney and his wife, Karen, were extremely grateful for the donations, which should last them another few weeks.

“By this time next week, if this didn’t happen, we would be out,” he said. “Because this will quickly go, so this is a blessing from God, [an] inspiration to those who gave, both with the items or monetary, is a blessing that the Sheriff’s office was willing to step up and do this.”

The pantry is most in need of shelf-stable meat items, Adrian said, as well as pasta, beans, and soup. Karen emphasized the importance of being able to provide someone with a full meal rather than miscellaneous grocery items. That’s why having meat items in the pantry is so important.

She added a lot of what was collected by the Sheriff’s department were those staple, meal-making items which was “really exciting to see,” she said.

The pantry is open to anyone living in the Western Tidewater area and visitors may receive their distribution once a month. Last month, the pantry distributed to nearly 250 families or individuals.