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Mobile food pantry helps Burke Co. residents

By Steve Ohnesorge - bio l email

MORGANTON,NC (WBTV) – Hundreds line up in Morganton Thursday to get boxes full of food. The Gaston Chapel AME Church sponsored a mobile food pantry at the church near the downtown area. People started lining up more than an hour before the food was to be given out. “I think it’s a wonderful thing,” said one of the volunteers. Church officials say their goal was that no family would go without this holiday season.

The Second Harvest Food Bank out of Charlotte was involved in the giveaway as well as the local help agency Burke United Christian Ministries.

Those getting food ranged from young families to senior citizens. Linda Lowman had a job for thirty seven years before she retired. She thought she would be able to live on savings and social security, but says medical bills have wiped out what she saved and now depends on social security. “After paying the bills there’s nothing left,” she says. Seventy two year old Harold Hildebrand was an electrician for forty years. After he became sick last year “it took all my savings to pay the medical bills,” he says.

For many, this was the last chance to get some food before Thanksgiving. The next mobile food pantry is not scheduled until December eighth at Shiloh AME church in the Lake James Community.

Burke United Christian Ministries has a local food pantry where the needy can get some help. When asked if the mobile pantries sponsored by local churches are taking some of the pressure off of BUCM, officials said no.  When the local pantry opens Friday morning, they expect a long line, something they say is normal.