POLSON – So far for the holiday season, the Polson Loaves and Fish Pantry has been well-stocked, according to their board’s president.
Mary Martin, who is also the operations manager of the food bank, says that thanks to the generous and giving community of Polson and the surrounding area, the food bank has a lot of what they need already.
Martin says the one thing they could always use is more money for day-to-day operations, but another are more turkeys.
While they don’t send out meals for Thanksgiving, they are preparing for Christmas where they hand out full hams and turkeys
Martin says they are about 120 turkeys short for the year.
Martin also says that they also have a great staff of volunteers who get everything they need done to handle the extra load of the holiday season.
“We have a full contingent of volunteers. We are really lucky. It gets to be a heavier load during December because we not only hand out their regular food, we also hand out a big sack of Christmas food, plus either the ham or the turkey,” Martin said. “So it’s just a whole lot of lifting and we have volunteers that come in, some from an insurance company and some from a bank, that are volunteering this year to come in and help us.”
The Loaves and Fish pantry also participates in a program put on by Town Pump that matches fundraising efforts.
When the Loaf and Fish pantry raised their goal of $12,000 this year Town Pump donated another $12,000, which Martin says goes a long ways to not just food for the shelter, but also for operational costs.
