Meager harvest for Kingsland food pantry
Sharing the Harvest volunteers bag groceries and distribute them to those in need as they pull through the food pantry line. Staff photo by Dakota Morrissiey
For three hours every Thursday, Sharing the Harvest in Kingsland hands out hundreds of pounds of groceries to hundreds of Highland Lakes residents. The nonprofit food pantry is in dire need of support as demand rises dramatically and funding and donations drop.
According to Sharing the Harvest leadership, the pantry is serving more individuals and families than ever, but the pipeline for critical donations, especially meat and other proteins, has dwindled in recent weeks due to funding cuts to Central Texas Food Bank and an inexplicable drop in contributed food from the local H-E-B.
Between 2022 and 2024, Sharing the Harvest saw a 62 percent increase in households served annually, from 4,939 to 8,032. In that same timeframe, it saw a 66 percent increase to individuals served annually, from 16,982 to 28,280. On average, the pantry served about 589 people on Thursdays in 2024.
Sharing the Harvest, 3435 RR 1431 in Kingsland, distributes food from 9 a.m. to noon every Thursday. Users often arrive before the pantry opens, forming long lines that stretch down 1431, sometimes extending several blocks, with wait times of three to four hours.
“Whether (the increase in food pantry users) has to do with the economy or generational poverty, I’m not really sure,” Sharing the Harvest board member Gary Chance told DailyTrib.com. “If they’re willing to sit here and wait in line to try to get food, they need it.”
Chance and over a dozen volunteers were handing out meals and groceries to a long line of pantry visitors on May 1.
“I think there are a lot of generous hearts, but they don’t know (about the number of those using the food pantry),” Chance continued. “I think if we can get the word out about people that have to worry about a meal, I think there would be more and more folks that are willing to come in and help.”
The pantry is totally reliant on donations and is currently holding a May-July funding drive. An anonymous donor committed to matching up to $2,500 per month of the drive for donations made by any business, church, or person that has not been a consistent monthly giver in the past.
To help, donate online or contact the pantry at 512-755-7126 or sth.kingslandtx@gmail.com.
Chance and other pantry leaders want to open the facility more days a week or later in the day to serve users who have full-time jobs, but that’s not currently possible due to the lack of donations and volunteers.
“We once had seven freezers full of meat to give to our families. Now, those are sitting empty because of the shortage of processed meats,” wrote Sharing the Harvest director Cynthia Green in a media release. “We remain grateful for our community individuals with hearts of serving other neighbors.”
According to Green, the pantry routinely received weekly, 200-pound donations of frozen and processed meats from the H-E-B in Kingsland at 215 RM 2900, but that has dropped significantly in recent weeks, to 80 pounds on the high end and 17 pounds on the low end.
Green said Sharing the Harvest is one of the biggest customers for the local H-E-B, having spent $84,000 on groceries there in 2024.
Another contributing issue to bare shelves was a March federal funding cut of millions of dollars to food purchasing programs through the U.S. Department of Agriculture. That had a direct impact on Central Texas Food Bank in Austin, which is a distribution center for area food pantries, including Sharing the Harvest.
According to Central Texas Food Bank communications specialist Noelle Newton, the facility lost about $5.5 million for the upcoming fiscal year due to the cuts, and 40 deliveries totaling $1.7 million worth of food, approximately 761,000 meals, were canceled.
“In the short term, we expect our partners to see fewer options and less variety of the food we have available,” Newton told DailyTrib.com in an emailed response to questions. “If nothing replaces these costs, at the end of the day, it will result in less food for families. We are going to do everything we can to ensure families do not go without, but we need everyone’s support.”