Common Heart feeds hundreds in mobile food pantry

MONROE, N.C. — Boxes of food were given to hundreds of families Tuesday in Union County.

Latraya Ingram said she has been struggling to pay bills and feed her two kids after recently losing her job.

Last month, she waited in a long line with 300 other families, so she could get fresh and nonperishable items.

"I kind of got there a little late, so I decided to get here early today and luckily the first one," Ingram said.

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Cars were wrapped around the Community Shelter of Union County in Monroe, which was similar to the scene last month.

[Hundreds line up for drive-thru food pantry in Union County]

Common Heart partnered with Second Harvest Food Bank of Metrolina so they could serve more than 350 families. Keith Adams, who is the executive director of Common Heart, said the need is growing, which is why they're adding more mobile food pantries in the coming weeks.

"We typically serve about 750 families through all of our pantries a month and last month, it was over 1,500, so we’ve doubled the number of people we’re serving, number of families," Adams said.

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Families were treated to Papa Murphy’s, who donated 400 pizzas, so each family could get an extra meal. Ashleigh Pilotte of the Matthews and Ballantyne pizza chain’s locations said, "I saw Common Heart had posted about their food pantries, and how many families had shown up because they can’t put food on their table. I just saw the need.”

Ingram’s family and others were extremely grateful.

“Thank you. Thank you very much. This is a great help to my family," Ingram said.

Common Heart is holding another mobile food pantry on Thursday. It will be at the Food Lion at 5850 Highway 74 in Indian Land from 9:30 a.m. to 11:30 a.m.

Common Heart is one of 800 agencies that rely on food donations from Second Harvest Food Bank of Metrolina.

Second Harvest needs funds to purchase healthy shelf-stable items for food boxes. These boxes will help feed families whose children are missing school meals, seniors being asked to stay safely in their homes, those in need of food who are quarantined and employees in our community being impacted by a decrease in work hours.

For the past 15 years, WSOC-TV and Second Harvest have partnered to end area hunger through the 9 Food Drive. One unforeseen effect of the coronavirus has been significant changes to how food donations can be collected and distributed.

This year, the 9 Food Drive campaign is transitioning to a virtual food drive and will only accept online monetary donations. Money donated will help the food bank purchase staple grocery items to put in food boxes.

With Second Harvest staff packing 2,500 boxes a week, and an additional 10,000 boxes a week being packed by volunteers at the Charlotte Convention Center, the food bank will be packing tens of thousands of food boxes within the next 30 days.

Second Harvest has a donation program in place with different levels of giving. Donors can equate their monetary donation to what can be supplied by the food bank.

Here are some of the giving levels:

A donation of $7 will help provide a food backpack for children missing school meals.

A donation of $13 will help provide a food box of 12 to 13 healthy staple items.

A donation of $25 will help provide a seven-day nutritionally balanced food box.

Food boxes are filled with a variety of items (e.g., peanut butter for protein, cereal, fruit and vegetables). Each box varies depending on what items the food bank can purchase.