Share your skills with Sharing the Harvest as it expands
Sharing the Harvest volunteers prepare to hand out bagged groceries to clients who drive up for food on Thursdays. The Kingsland-based food pantry is expanding into a building next door, where the nonprofit hopes to set up a ‘shopping’ area for people to choose their own food and expand storage. Sharing the Harvest photo
Kingsland’s Sharing the Harvest food pantry is expanding into a new building and needs help to prepare the space for food storage and delivery.
“We are not fancy—we don’t need fancy for food distribution—but we have to do some upgrades to open our new facility up,” said nonprofit board President Cynthia Green. “We need to expand our open days and operations, like adding a couple of evenings a week for people to walk in after work.”
Sharing the Harvest has been feeding the hungry in Kingsland since 1994. It is located at 3435 RR 1431 next to First Baptist Church, a long-time sponsor of the nonprofit.
Also, next door is a building that was at one time His Joshua House recovery center and Recovery Church. Sharing the Harvest leased the building to expand its storage and operation space in hopes of setting up a “grocery shopping” experience.
“Right now, we just have the drive-through model,” Green said. “We’ll continue with that but want to open up an open-shelf model like The Helping Center food pantry in Marble Falls.”
Currently, drive-through clients receive already prepared bags of groceries. An open-shelf model would let people select the foods that most suit their tastes and needs. Sharing the Harvest partners with 365 Pet Connections, which distributes free dog and cat food, and the Pregnancy Life Center, which helps meet the needs of pregnant women and young mothers.
The most immediate need is for professionals who can volunteer electrical and plumbing work. A local business has donated paint, so Green now needs painters.
The space also needs shelving, shopping carts, and refrigerator and freezer units, but the most immediate request is a new laptop to keep track of what’s coming in and going out.
“The laptop we are using now is very slow and temperamental,” Green said. “And we really need someone who can build us a website.”
An official website would allow for easy online donations and fundraising.
Anyone wanting to donate money or volunteer time and talent to Sharing the Harvest can call or text Green at 512-755-7126.