FEATURES
Zionsville Food Pantry A Community Effort to Feed Those in Need | Neil Lucas. Photos | JJ Kaplan With thanksgiving and the holidays approaching, it is natural for our focus to be directed to those less fortunate and those in the Zionsville community that provide assistance to those in need. The Zionsville Food Pantry is one such group that is providing an invaluable service to feed the needy in Boone County year round. Every Friday between noon and 2 pm, families in Boone County can come to the Food Pantry to receive a bag of food and other essential items. Miraculously, the Zionsville 16
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Food Pantry is run by a dedicated all-volunteer team, headed by Nancy Thompson. When and where the Food Pantry was started is unclear. However, it appears to have been at its present location in the Zionsville Presbyterian Church on Michigan Road since at least 1992. According to Nancy Thompson who has been its Director since 2003, the Pantry has grown steadily over the years to where it is now the largest food pantry serving Boone County. Recently the Pantry joined into an association with Gleaners Food Bank
and also became a participant in The Emergency Food Assistance Program (“TEFAP�). A federal program, TEFAP is essentially a matching grant program. For every dollar of food or money that is contributed directly to the Pantry, TEFAP matches that amount in food that the Pantry can order from the Gleaners Food Bank. Based on direct contributions to the Pantry last year, the Pantry through TEFAP was able to receive 82,000 pounds of food from Gleaners. In order to continue to provide that amount of food to the needy, the Pantry must generate, from direct monetary or food
NEWSLETTER | NOVEMBER 2013
10/30/2013 5:09:36 PM