County food bank closes after 15 years in operation
Tallulah – One of Graham County’s most influential charities is calling it quits after aiding countless individuals over the past decade-and-a-half.
The Graham County Emergency Food Pantry held its last distribution day on Wednesday, Dec. 30, ending nearly 16 years of distribution. The charity is closing its doors as its founders and volunteers continue to age, without a younger generation interested in taking over its operation.
“I’m 80 years old,” said President and Treasurer Gerald Ledbetter.
Ledbetter spoke to the charity’s founding.
“There’s a little building right across over here, and we started giving out food out of that little bitty building,” Ledbetter said. “Then we transferred from that little building to over here.”
Ledbetter also said the rules for running a charity like the food bank had also become more complex, was were the rules the charity was having to follow as it ended its operations.
“There’s so much involved in the stuff, so much you have to do,” said past president Alton Prather.
Ledbetter said the due to the pantry distributing food aid from The Emergency Food Assistance Program, there were even further requirements it had to meet beyond what a food pantry not handling federal food would have to.
“There’s a lot of paperwork involved when you’re handling federal food,” Ledbetter said.
Volunteer Constance Williams said a major issue with the charity ending its work is not knowing quite where to send the people it has served after it closes down.
“We’ve not been told if there’s another food bank going up or what,” Williams said. “It’s up in the air right now.”
“We don’t know who’s going to take up the slack,” Ledbetter added.
At every distribution, at least eight people were at the pantry helping throughout its operation.
“These places need donations, they need volunteers,” said Williams. “They need to follow through with what Pat has established, which what Alton’s established together, and Irene, they’ve put a lot of time into this. They work hard. Most of us have been here at least 8-15 years.”
Generally the pantry distributed approximately 215 boxes on its distribution, down from 300 when it first began operations.
Ledbetter said the drop was due to conditions in the area improving and other food banks taking over some of the burden.
“In one way, (closing the pantry) was a good thing because of our health, but in another way it’s bad, because the people won’t get nothing that I know of,” Prather said.