For the last two months, Spring Hill Food Pantry has currently dealt with an immense food shortage. Evidently, the food shortage is bad enough that it is affecting the community.

“It’s impacted us and the customers greatly. Every Thursday, we were [previously] giving quite a large box of non-perishable foods full to the brim,” Sharon Skrethmeyer, facilitator of Spring Hill Food Pantry, said.

For the last two weeks, they have been unable to provide this normal quantity of food to customers, Skrethmeyer told Stampede News.

“Of course [customers are] noticing it. We have to plan for between 140 and 150 families per week coming through, we’ve got to have enough food in the pantry to fill a box full [enough for that amount of people],” Skrethmeyer added.

The food pantry is only able to provide customers with one box a week that is filled with the absolute minimal amount of food. This is the only way they can accumulate as much as they can to provide for customers. This is a problem and it is affecting the people who are in need.

Skrethmeyer is extremely grateful for the help that the food pantry is receiving from other organizations. Harvesters bring food twice a month along with the high school volunteer club, Price Chopper barrel donations, and numerous others.

“We tried to host a school-wide mini food drive by putting it into the announcements but [that] didn’t get a very good turn-out,” Emily Veer, volunteer club coordinator, said.

Since nothing came out of this, Veer and volunteer club correspondent, Kerri Rodden, worked together to bring about a freshman advisory competition. Through this, they were able to contribute some donations to the pantry.

“I think it’s just good to be aware, knowing where the needs are in your community and if you are able to help towards those needs. It’s hard to help when you don’t know,” Veer said.

As Veer elaborated, the food pantry crisis is never going to be resolved if it remains unseen by the community. It is crucial that members of the community can do what they can to help.

“I want the community to know we appreciate them because there’s a lot more going on in the pantry than they might know, and we just appreciate them doing just the tiny part to support folks that need just a little bit of a boost,” Skrethmeyer said.

For anyone in the community who is interested in volunteering, Skrethmeyer advised participants to access lifespring.org where there is an option for food pantry contact information.