By Taylor Boyd
After a nearly 10-month hiatus, Disaster Relief Food Ministry, Inc., restarted its monthly food box distribution at Rotary Field in Stuart, with distributions to be held on the first Thursday of every month from 2-4 p.m.
Jimmy Willard, president of the organization, said that during the Thursday, April 2 distribution, more than 200 food boxes were distributed. Five rows of cars were lined up waiting before volunteers were set up to begin distributions.
The vehicles were “all the way across and back down to the road,” Willard said.
The organization stopped its monthly distributions at Rotary Field in June due to Willard’s health issues.
Willard said he and the other volunteers decided to restart the distribution after praying about it.
He noted a lot of people also messaged him asking for it to resume.
While he doesn’t know how many boxes will be distributed monthly, Willard estimates the number will get back up to where it was before the hiatus.
“I think 340 was maybe the most we done, and that’s a guess. The least we’ve ever done was 256, and it’s still a big number,” he said.
“When I got sick, the funding and the food donations had kind of gotten slow. They’re still slow, but we’ve picked up some funding and that’s what got us to be able to come back,” he said.
The organization received a $10,000 grant earlier this year that will be used to purchase the food items and the boxes needed for distribution.
“Next month, we’re going to be set up real good,” Willard said. “This is just what we had to work with today, but next month we’ve got the boxes coming in. We’ve got the food coming in to do 600 boxes a month.”
The food boxes typically contain enough food to last for two weeks, Willard said, noting the distributed boxes contained a bag of potatoes, frozen meat, and cases of Gatorade.
“We try to make a good box that will last for a couple of weeks, because then the Patrick County Food Bank will be open to help,” Willard said. “I’m trying to make it available where people have somewhere to go every month.”
Willard said his wife, Carol, also works to plan the meals that people can make from the items in their food boxes.
“My wife does all the ordering and purchasing of the food and everything. She really enjoys it. If we put spaghetti noodles in there we make sure we got sauce available to go with it,” Willard said. “We try to get an assortment, stable meals that’s got good protein and stuff in it.”
The group distributes boxes at its Bassett location, 24A Governor Stanley Highway, on the fourth Tuesday of each month from 9-11:30 a.m. and again from 12:30-2 p.m.
Donations can be mailed to P.O. Box 993, Stuart, VA 24171.
For more information, visit drfminc.com, Facebook.com/DisasterReliefFoodMinistryInc, or contact Willard at (276) 229-6272, or drmf.inc@gmail.com.
