Holy Nativity, Panama City starts new Food Bank

By Ed Richards, Coastline Communicator
Holy Nativity, Panama City

Panama City, FL — The Mission and Outreach Committee of Holy Nativity, Panama City started a Food Bank this summer in the old Episcopal school building. The need for a Food Bank in Panama City was revealed in the wake of Hurricane Katrina when all the local pantries were quickly emptied.  Although several groups have attempted to start a Food Bank since, the problem has always been finding space. Since the old Episcopal school consolidated its classrooms at the old Cove Elementary campus, space in the former school building was freed for Nativity’s Mission and Outreach Committee to use for this latest project.  The Food Bank will be used as a reserve resource for the food pantries when those primary supplies at the pantries have diminished, and will not give out food directly to individuals.  (Direct individual donation is the job of food pantries).

Volunteers for Holy Nativity's new Food Bank take a break during the first workday

On July 10, 2010, the group gathered for the first step which was to clean and prepare the rooms for non-perishable food item storage.  The work day started at 8:00 AM (although there were some early arrivals).

Following are highlights of the day:

• 16 people, young, old and in-between showed up.
• We cleaned both of the rooms available to us in the 2 story building.
• We moved shelving from around the old school campus into the rooms.
• We assembled 10 units of new shelving (Thanks Fr. Steve) and arranged them in the room.
• And we finished early, before 11 AM!

Rumor has it there was an unofficial contest as to who could put the shelving units together the quickest (winner not announced and no prizes awarded).

Special thanks to Hercules Pettis for the loan of hand trucks and furniture dollies;  Lawrence Long for unloading Fr. Steve’s truck and placing the shelving units in the cafeteria so we had easy access to them and Dick Herbert for identifying and moving shelving units from other parts of the campus prior to the work day.  Many thanks to all who participated!

The next step will be to fill the shelves with non-perishable food items. The Missions and Outreach Committee is compiling a list of needed items which will be published soon.

Thanks again to all who participated.  Everyone worked hard, but had fun doing so!