Food pantry teams with Lind-Ritzville Schools for Christmas meals

RITZVILLE - The Ritzville Food Pantry is in its busy season and is working hard to make sure Ritzville families in need have what they need this Christmas to have a full holiday meal. It also got some help with the elementary school food drive.

Dec.18 was the food bank’s Christmas box distribution day.

“We do it every year as one big special event,” said Carol Ewing of the Ritzville Food Bank at the Lind-Ritzville School Board meeting on Dec. 18. “We had 167 [box requests] this year.”

The Ritzville Grade School and Lind Elementary schools held food drives to help raise food and money for the boxes. About 700 pounds of food was collected in the drives.

“We also got food from the hospital this year,” Ewing said. “And for some reason, people kept handing me checks saying, ‘This is to buy food for the boxes.’ So we bought another 1,600 pounds of food.”

Ewing said while the food pantry and area churches provide a lot of the Christmas meal staples, food from the food drive make the boxes extra special.

“Often [food from school food drives] is the only extra food we get,” Ewing said.

Ewing said food purchased by the food bank is paid for by grants the banks receive. She also announced that the Ritzville Food Pantry just recieved a $3,500 grant from Umpqua.

“We had those grants, so we were able to go out and purchase stuff, but we don’t always have those funds,” Ewing said.

While Christmas is the food pantry’s busy season, food is needed year around. Ewing said people may be surprised about the type of food items they don’t get enough of.

“We get food from Second Harvest, Northwest Harvest and Government Commodities, but that’s mostly things like potatoes and onions, with some meat and some bread and some refrigerated produce,” Ewing said. “The canned food and canned vegetables that you think of for a food pantry, we don’t get very much of.”

Ewing recommends considering the nutritional value of the food being donated.

“I try to steer people toward protein foods like peanut butter, tuna and some soups rather than things like macaroni,” Ewing said. “Though the macaroni goes over very well, so we’ll take that too.”

The Ritzville Food Pantry is located at 104 W. Main Ave. in Ritzville and is open Wednesdays from 9 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. For more information on the pantry or on how to donate, call 509-659-4449.