Food pantry stocked and ready to help those in need

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BY CHUCK VANDENBERG
PCC EDITOR

FORT MADISON - The Fort Madison Food Pantry may have had to change some delivery methods, but officials there say they have plenty of supplies are ready to help anyone who needs food assistance.

Lin Cramer, president of the food pantry board, said the state has relaxed restrictions as part of Gov. Kim Reynolds emergency disaster order. As part of that order, anyone can now come get food at the pantry without income guidelines or visit restrictions.

"Anyone can come and pick up food now regardless of your income," Cramer said Tuesday. "And there is typically a limit on visits of 12 per year, but during this time, visits don't apply to that limitation."

[Food Pantry volunteers Joy Main and Brad Kurtz practicing social distancing as they assist a local household with its food needs

All orders are being delivered curbside to help with the state's recommendation for social distancing as the coronavirus runs rampant across the nation.

Cramer said that change went into effect on Wednesday and the pantry was very busy that day, but since then the traffic has slowed.

"We just want people to know were stocked and ready to go. They can just come in, give us their name and zip code and they get the food. You don't have to be signed up right now or anything."

The Iowa Food Bank dropped off 4,000 pounds of food this week and Cramer said grocers, who were a wary about donations and supplies the past few weeks are starting to get shelves replenished and now can help with food pantry contributions as well.

She said people in Fort Madison have been very generous since the outbreak began.

"We have the best citizens here and they really stepped up with donations when all this started, so we're in pretty good shape right now," she said.

For drive up service visitors should pull their vehicle to the Pantry’s front entrance, and show their ID through the glass in their window. Each visitor will be instructed to pop open their trunk and volunteers will load the trunk with approximately 40 pounds of pre-selected food.

The Pantry located at 3421 Avenue L (across from MacDonalds) is open regular hours—Monday, Wednesday and Friday, 9 to 12 noon and 1 to 3 pm.

assistance, Coronavirus, donations, food pantry, fort madison, Pen City Current

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