The George H. Riedel Foundation has awarded the Salvation Army of Hannibal a $15,000 grant that will help feed people in need this fall and into the Christmas season.
The Salvation Army will use $5,000 of the grant to restock the shelves of the food pantry.
“This is a slow time for pantry donations and the need is ever increasing,” said Jake Reed, who is the Donor Relations Coordinator with the Salvation Army of Hannibal. “We need to fill our pantry shelves with nutritional foods after the summer months. The shelves are bare and there are no vegetables. The Riedel Foundation grant will help fill the need until our fall food drives begin.”
The balance of the grant, $10,000, will pay for roughly a third of the total cost to provide Christmas food boxes to people in need. This year, the Salvation Army expects to provide about 850 food boxes. They contain all a family needs to prepare a full Christmas dinner with all the fixings, plus breakfast food for Christmas morning.
“We don’t want anyone to go hungry Christmas day,” said Riedel Trustee Paul Richards. “So many people face daily food insecurity, and this is just one day of the year they won’t have to worry about it. It’s the right thing to do.”
The Christmas food boxes go to residents in six northeast Missouri counties, but more than 90 percent serve Hannibal residents.