Take action for Hunger Awareness Month; lists of pantries, food needs

It’s hard to feed the hungry when no food is to be had. In its drive to fight hunger in the Highland Lakes, the Burnet County Hunger Alliance has hit a major bump in the road: a worldwide food shortage that has depleted goods at the Central Texas Food Bank in Austin, which supplies most of the free food distributed in the Highland Lakes. 

“For us who go to the grocery store and see the rising cost of food, the empty shelves, the signs limiting how much you can buy, think about how that translates to a food bank,” said Jaelyn Nelson, Hunger Alliance director and food security coordinator for the Highland Lakes Crisis Network. 

The Burnet County Hunger Alliance is an umbrella organization over all of the area food pantries. The alliance is part of the HLCN, which serves as the nonprofit entity and can apply for grant money. 

To better tell the story of hunger in the Highland Lakes, the HLCN came up with Hunger Awareness Month, based on Feeding America’s Hunger Action Month. It cannot be found in a published list of special days and months, at least not for September. It’s a homegrown advocacy month.

“We wanted to tell people about hunger in our own backyard,” Nelson said of why HLCN decided to have a Hunger Awareness Month. “A lot of time, people don’t think about it being here. They think it’s in the bigger cities or not even in the U.S. Having a Hunger Awareness Month was a great way to say, ‘Here’s the facts in this area.’” 

Current numbers show that 12.1 percent of the population of Burnet County is food insecure, meaning they lack reliable access to a sufficient supply of affordable, nutritious food. Nationwide, that number is 10.5 percent. 

Increasing food prices and the lack of product due to supply chain issues has made hunger awareness even more essential now as area food pantries are feeling the pinch of dwindling supplies from Austin. 

“We are all hurting,” said Sam Pearce, executive director of The Helping Center in Marble Falls. “We used to have six or seven pages to order from the food bank. Now, we get one page. They just don’t have that much right now.” 

Part of the problem is a worldwide food shortage. 

“The USDA has canceled their food trailer loads,” said Sari Vatske, CEO of Central Texas Food Bank. “They are also having purchasing and supply chain issues. Food banks are not insulated by supply chains but more impacted.”

Much of the food that central food banks receive come from surplus purchased by the U.S. Department of Agriculture directly from production and manufacturing, including chicken and cereal. It comes by the food trailer load, which are 18-wheelers with 53-foot tractor-trailers. 

“We are having to buy from the same sources as the grocery stores,” Vatske said.

That’s exactly what food pantries like The Helping Center, St. Frederick’s Baptist Church, LACare in Burnet, and Joseph’s Food Pantry have to do.

“I just raced Bessie Jackson to H-E-B for potatoes,” Pearce said as he gave this reporter a tour of the depleted shelves at the center at 1015 Broadway in Marble Falls. “I just bought two cases of hot dogs and 10 pounds of potatoes, and it was $170 because I can’t get them from the Central Texas Food Bank.”

It would have cost $17 from the Austin central food bank. 

Jackson is the missionary administrator for St. Frederick’s, which operates a food kitchen from 11:30 a.m. -1 p.m. Tuesdays and Thursdays and 9 a.m. on Saturdays. 

“If you’re looking for potatoes at H-E-B after 4 p.m., you might be out of luck,” Pearce said. “Between the two of us, we sometimes buy them out.” 

Local grocers, particularly H-E-B and Walmart, already donate a tremendous amount of food, including bread, vegetables, pastries, and frozen foods. 

“Hunger is not a new thing,” Nelson said, when asked about how best to eradicate it. “It will take a joint effort to end it. Maybe the solution is in someone else’s brain and they haven’t thought of it yet. We want to hear from people, we need people to be involved.”

TAKE ACTION

This year, The Picayune Magazine-KBEY 103.9 FM Radio Picayune Food Drive can’t happen soon enough, according to Sam Pearce, executive director of The Helping Center in Marble Falls.

“When we do the KBEY food drive, we’ve really got to hit a home run,” Pearce told The Picayune Magazine. “We need a lot of stuff. We can’t get chili or beans or canned beans. We can’t get any kind of juice. We can’t get milk or bottled water. Protein is another problem.”

Between now and the annual food drive on Nov. 9 from 6 a.m.-3 p.m., KBEY, alongside the Burnet County Hunger Alliance, plans to promote September as Hunger Awareness Month. KBEY will be directing listeners to where and on how to help alleviate the program of hunger in the Highland Lakes. 

Two easy ways to donate money are by visiting the websites of The Helping Center in Marble Falls and LACare in Burnet. Both have donate buttons. All you need to do is click on “DONATE” and follow the directions. The Helping Center website is helpingcenter.org. LACare, or Lakes Area Care Inc., can be found online at lacareburnet.org. 

Or, you can check out the list of most-needed foods below, buy them yourself, and bring them to any of the area food pantries.

“There’s a food shortage on the planet, in the country, in this state,” Pearce said. “It’s not there. The food bank in Austin doesn’t have it sell us.”

So, what can we do about that, Highland Lakes? 

WHERE TO HELP OR GET HELP

FOOD PANTRIES

The Helping Center of Marble Falls

1016 Broadway, Marble Falls, 830-693-5689

HOURS: 9:30 a.m.-1:30 p.m. Monday-Friday; 5:30-7 p.m. Tuesday

Joseph’s Food Pantry

706 N. Phillips Ranch Road, Granite Shoals, 830-220-2344

HOURS: 2 p.m. on first, second, and third Tuesdays; first-come, first-served

LACare

507 Buchanan, Burnet, 512-756-4422

HOURS: 2-6 p.m. Mondays; 10 a.m.-2 p.m. Wednesdays and Fridays 

Church of Christ

711 Broadway, Marble Falls

HOURS: 6-7 p.m. Wednesdays; 1:30-3:30 p.m. Thursdays

First Baptist Church Food Pantry

501 12th St., Marble Falls

HOURS: 2-4 p.m. Tuesdays and Thursdays

The Cupboard 

4111 Cottonwood Drive, Cottonwood Shores, 830-693-1410

HOURS: 4-7 p.m. on second Wednesday of the month 

Sharing the Harvest

3435 RR 1431 West, Kingsland, 325-388-0620

HOURS: 9 a.m. to noon Thursdays

Spicewood Helping Hand Crisis

512 Pace Bend Road North, 512-808-6092

HOURS: 4-6 p.m. Tuesdays

Bertram Food Pantry

520 Texas 29 East, Bertram, 512-355-2918

HOURS: 1-3 p.m. and 5:30-7 p.m. Thursdays

Community Blessings Boxes

Bertram Blessing Box at First United Methodist Church

115 North St., Bertram 

HOURS: Open 24/7; donations can be dropped off

Ross’ Blessing Pantry at First Christian Church

204 E. Graves, Burnet

HOURS: Open 24/7; donations can be dropped off

Hoover’s Valley Mobile Food Pantry

Hoover’s Valley Volunteer Fire Department, 303 CR 118B, Hoover’s Valley

HOURS: 1-3 p.m. on first Saturday of the month

COMMUNITY KITCHENS

Mission Marble Falls at The Boys & Girls Club

1701 Broadway St. Marble Falls, TX 78654, 512-254-3485

HOURS: 11:30 a.m.-1 p.m. Monday, Wednesday, and Friday  

St. Frederick Baptist Church in Marble Falls

301 S. Avenue N., Marble Falls, 830-693-4499

HOURS: 11 a.m.-1 p.m. Tuesday and Thursday 

Church of Christ Community Kitchen

711 Broadway St., Marble Falls, 830-693-5575

HOURS: 5:30 p.m. on last Wednesday of the month 

Vandeveer Church of Christ

102 S. Vandeveer St., Burnet

HOURS: 4-5:30 p.m. Thursdays

A list, including community kitchen locations, is available at burnetcountyhungeralliance.org.

FILL THE GAPS

Certain items are becoming scarce at local food pantries. Here’s a list of some of the most-needed items, which recently have not been readily available from the Central Texas Food Bank, where most of the local pantries get their supplies.

• Frozen meats
• Canned meats like Spam, chicken, tuna, potted meat, ham
• Cereals of any kind
• Canned beans like Ranch Style beans, pinto beans, pork and beans (but not black beans, which are not in big demand)
• Peanut butter
• Ramen
• Rice
• Bread, which is needed on a daily basis
• Dry milk and juice

suzanne@thepicayune.com