Over 600 food items donated from Kids Day at Festival of Trees

On Monday morning, the Harvest for the Hungry food pantry got a large donation from the Lawrence County Chamber of Commerce, thanks, in part, to children.

“This past Saturday, we did the Festival of Trees and Christmas Market. From 10 a.m.–2 p.m., it was Kids Day and the cost of admission was one non-perishable food item,” said Shane Finster, vice-president of the Lawrence County Chamber of Commerce and community marketing manager for Armstrong.

Over the course of the day, the Chamber collected $118 cash and 610 food items, enough to fill up the back of an Armstrong van and to fill two carts to get it all inside the storage area of the food pantry.

“It is a dramatically better haul than we have seen in past years,” Finster said. “It has been wonderful to see how gracious the community has been after a very tough year and a half for everyone in the community and everyone in the world, for that matter. We are overjoyed and are glad to bring the donations to our partner this year, Harvest for the Hungry.”

This is the first year that the Chamber has partnered with Harvest for the Hungry.

And the director of the food pantry, Diane Porter, said it was a wonderful donation.

“It is so nice to expand our networking and Armstrong has been instrumental in making that happen,” she said before thanking Finster.

Porter added that Harvest for the Hungry wouldn’t be able to help the people of Lawrence County without support of community partners.

“We depend on them 100 percent,” she said. “We are 100 percent run on donations, but we do have some grants.”

The pantry gets a FEMA grant, a grant from the United Way of the River Cities and a grant from the Pallottine Foundation of Huntington, which are all targeted for specific things. The United Way grant goes for hygiene products and the Pallottine Foundation grant goes towards for senior citizens to get nutritional drinks.

Donations for Harvest for the Hungry can be sent to PayPal via Harvestforthehungry@outlook.com or checks can be mailed to Harvest for the Hungry, PO Box 153, Ironton, OH 45638.