Holts Summit Food Pantry receives $10,817 donation from The Food Bank

<p>Learn more about The Food Bank at sharefoodbringhope.org. (Submitted)</p>

Learn more about The Food Bank at sharefoodbringhope.org. (Submitted)

The Holts Summit Food Pantry has received a $10,817 grant from The Food Bank for Central & Northeast Missouri to go toward hunger relief for Callaway County families.

The money will go toward a three-door commercial freezer and three-door commercial cooler.

The grant is part of $179,000 in Capacity Building Grants that The Food Bank is providing to 23 partner agencies in 13 counties. The Holts Summit Food Pantry is one of The Food Bank's 140 partner agencies in its 32-county service area in central and northeastern Missouri.

The Food Bank regularly provides food to the pantry that is distributed locally. With this funding for the freezer and cooler, made possible by Feeding America, the Holts Summit Food Pantry will be able to hold a larger volume of donations and keep them properly refrigerated so they can be given to more families, said L.P. Cook III, who pastors Union Hill Baptist Church, where the food pantry is hosted.

"Lots of things (our donors) send us either require refrigeration or freezer space, and these particular units are a lot higher volume. It helps us to store food so we can distribute it across several days," Cook said. "Being able to spread that out helps us to take more in so we can give more out to families."