Pantry

Saint Luke’s Scottsboro Pantry Overview
2019-2026
By The Rev. Polly Robb

 

In the summer of 2019 when I arrived at St. Luke’s the parish food pantry was budgeted
$333 a month. The food pantry committee bought canned food, rice, and beans from local
retailers with their funds and distributed to 30-40 families at our advertised monthly
Saturday pantry day once a month.
Then the pandemic hit in 2020.
Doing the Pantry work took many more hands and generous donors to make the pantry
operate smoothly during this crisis. St. Luke’s designated its usual 4K of the budget for the
2020 pantry year, but due to the great need arising from the economic fallout of the
pandemic, this was not enough. We asked and were gifted additional donations of over
$8,500 from those in and outside the parish that year.
In addition, St. Luke’s applied for and received a CARES grant late in the year ($8,000 was
given to the pantry to cover the following two years’ needs) allowing us to continue to meet
the increased need as well as to offer more food to our pantry clients. Our pantry became a
drive thru pantry. The number of people we served rose 142%, and the number of bags of
groceries we provided increased 150%. In 2020 the church office also began giving out bags
of food to walk ins on a daily basis and we stocked our blessing box with what we could.
Over the next couple of years, the numbers of persons in need continued to grow and we
found ways to accommodate that growth. In 2021 we changed our supplier and became a
part of the North Alabama Food Bank which significantly reduced overall costs. At the end of
2021 our costs had reached $10,980/year. But in 2022, because of our partnership with the
NAFB, food costs were cut in half!
In 2022, we attended the Hunger Summit of North Alabama and made contacts so that St.
Luke’s could partner with Publix at its opening in November. We maintain a weekly pickup
agreement for bakery, frozen meat, & produce at no cost to us from Publix. This has provided
us with a weekly supply for walk ins and any surplus that we cannot store is shared with the
A.M.E. church in Scottsboro and distributed to those in need.
The pantry committee keeps copious notes and reports to the North Alabama Food Bank as
required. For example, NAFB provides cases of canned goods and dry goods at $0.14 on the
dollar. In 2023 we received over 350 cases of canned goods and 4,500 lbs. of dry goods. We
pick up donations from Publix every Friday morning, on average receiving over 600 lbs. of
bakery goods, produce, and frozen meat every week. Based on just the product received
from Publix and NAFB, we distributed nearly 50,000 lbs. of food through our various
channels in 2023.
A huge improvement happened for the Food Pantry in 2024. Our old pantry room which
housed an old donated upright freezer and a small refrigerator, was greatly limiting what we
could offer. The pantry expansion project, completed for just over $6,500, was paid through
a couple of parish member donations, a $5000 grant from the Diocese, and a donation of
shelving from Lozier Corporation in Scottsboro. Our newly remodeled Pantry Room
converted what had been the parish parlor/living room. The new space vastly increased our

storage space, allowing us to store more dry goods on shelves and to add a second freezer
for meat. Along with the increased storage space, the location of the Pantry Room near our
drive thru portico allowed us to operate more efficiently for loading/unloading donations.
During 2024 the average number of individuals served on our monthly pantry day increased
to 237, with the number of children we served growing as well. We improved the
accessibility of our “Blue Blessing Box,” which allows those in need to come after hours to
get non-perishable foods from donations to the pantry. (NAFB does not allow uncontrolled
distribution of food items). We expanded our partners who serve the needs in the
community to include Life Resources who serves the unhoused. We expanded our sourcing
partnership to include Dollar General, who prior to working with us, was throwing away
perishable items such as milk, luncheon meats, and even bottled water past their sell by
dates. We now pick up food twice a week from the two Dollar General stores in Scottsboro.
In 2025, we wrote a grant through the Dollar General foundation and received two
commercial appliances, a double wide stainless-steel freezer and a double wide stainless-
steel refrigerator. Without parish support and the diocesan grant to move our pantry room
to its new location a year earlier, we would not have been able to accommodate such large
appliances. At the end of 2025, during the months of November and December we served
over 105 families each month, and over 320 individuals per month, of which 100+ were
children. Our daily walk ins are also at an all-time high, serving 5-7 families each week. In
five years our pantry grew 900%.
Through our outreach, and particularly through our feeding ministries supporting Meals on
Wheels and our Food Pantry, Saint Luke’s has become known in our community as being a
small parish with a big impact! We receive monetary donations from community members
who are not members as well as our own members. We keep our costs down with grants and
careful sourcing and planning. We continue to share our resources with other places who
serve those in need (in 2025, we shared with St Paul AME church, Life Resources in
Scottsboro, Michael Scott Learning Center in Stevenson, and TNT Ministries.)
God has shown us how to live into our motto: to be a place “Where Love Leads the Way.”