ALTON, Ill. — Thanksgiving is right around the corner.
Volunteers at a new food pantry in Alton, Illinois, are hard at work preparing 100 Thanksgiving boxes to give to people in need.
Becky Carroll is the Executive Director of the new Storehouse Food Pantry.
"We started probably back in the fall, it was kind of a vision of the Pastor at Greater Glory Tabernacle, Kenneth Campbell, and he just wanted to be able to feed God's people," Carroll said.
After a tedious process to get their nonprofit status, she's leading a team of volunteers to help people in need by purchasing food with their own money and through a $10,000 grant.
"Money from the community grant that has to be used to purchase food that has to be somebody from Madison County and they have to fall within the 200% federal poverty guideline, but I do have a few other people in need so food that I purchase ourselves out of any funds can go to other people that don't quite qualify but are in emergency need," Carroll said.
At the grand opening on Saturday, Nov. 20, they're giving away 100 Thanksgiving food boxes to pre-registered clients, but they'll still have additional food bags available for anyone who shows up and wants to learn about getting assistance from the Storehouse Food Pantry.
"We have a lot of the staple items so you can make a green bean casserole, a corn casserole, it'll have your turkey in it, rolls, butter a lot of sides, we've got stuffing, egg noodles, we're just hoping that we're going to have some pie soon," Carroll said.
Carroll said canned goods, breakfast foods and meats are always good foods to donate, but they'll take anything they can get.
"Anybody that's got something laying around that it's been there for three weeks and you've not touched it, it's something that maybe you could donate to someone else," Carroll said.
Storehouse Food Pantry is located at 3420 College Avenue in Alton, Illinois.
It's open every Friday from 3 p.m. to 5 p.m.
They're also open this Saturday from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. to give out Thanksgiving boxes.
For more information about donating and volunteering, visit the Storehouse Food Pantry's Facebook page or contact Chris Eardley at blapat521@hotmail.com.