ELLY GRIMM
• Leader & Times
Many individuals and families are facing some degree of food insecurity in recent times, and the City of Liberal would like to help those in the community.
“Local food banks are facing challenges to meet the increased needs from people in the community, and to help with that, the City of Liberal is hosting a food drive drop off location at City Hall where everyone is welcome to bring non-perishable food items to support fellow residents,” Chief Communications Officer Keeley Young said. “Donations will be collected through Dec. 8 and may be dropped off in the administration lobby at City Hall.”
Young said the project came together rather quickly.
“Seeing what’s happening at the local level is what started the conversations, we’ve been hearing about an increased need for assistance in the community to stock local food banks,” Young said. “Holidays are always one of those times of the year when those groups face a lot of increased need, so last week, we met as a team, talked through what we could do and ultimately decided to go for it. A food drive is something that’s relatively simple to put together, it’s mostly a matter of getting the word out about donations being collected. I’m happy we’re doing it at City Hall, it’s a very easy and accessible spot for everyone, and it’s a great place to bring donations if you happen to need to stop by and pay a bill or take care of some other business.”
Young added it was a relatively easy decision to do the food drive.
“It was pretty easy for us to decide the food drive would be something pretty easy to put together. Just a few days after we announced everything on our social media pages, we were already getting a good response from several people in the community who either wanted to thank us for doing this and people who said they’d help spread the word about it all,” Young said. “That almost immediate response tells me it was a good decision to do this. And again, it’s not something that was super labor-intensive to organize, and it’s something that’s easy for people to donate to. The City of Liberal hasn’t done anything of this scale before so to me, since we’re a large employer and we care about people in the community, things like this are what we should be doing in terms of public service. And since generosity is not only in our city motto but also the basis of how Liberal was founded, it was very easy for us to do this for the community.”
With this being the city’s first such undertaking, Young said leaders are playing expectations rather by ear.
“No matter how much we get, it’s going to make a difference to someone. Whether we collect a little or a lot, every donation is going to help someone in the community, which is important,” Young said. “We know there are senior citizens in the community struggling to make ends meet, and we know there are some children who, during the holiday months especially, don’t have the food resources they would have by going to school. Being able to do this, especially this time of year, is really critical for a lot of people. It’s very easy to pick up a couple additional items while you’re at the store and bring them in to City Hall if there’s a time you have to come in and pay a bill or take care of something else. We’re glad to be that drop-off point and help give back to the community. And there are people in town who might not be aware of how to donate to one of the food banks in town, so we’re happy to help with that too.”
Suggested non-perishable foods that can be donated include canned fruits, vegetables and meats, peanut butter, cereal and oatmeal, nuts, dried fruits, and dried beans, canned soup, rice, pasta, shelf-stable milk, boxed meals, and packaged snacks and crackers.
“We do not have a fridge or freezer at City Hall, so we can’t accept anything that requires refrigeration, and we highly recommend people check the expiration date on whatever they plan on donating,” Young said.
Young said she hopes to see a lot of generosity from the community.
“It makes me very proud to be part of this community and proud of us living up to our city motto and the reason Liberal was founded,” Young said. “I’m also excited to see the food banks’ reactions when we go out and about giving them these donations because I know they’re struggling right now. We do have several families who recently relocated to the U.S. for work, and since they spent a lot of money moving here and getting housing and everything else, they probably won’t have very much money until their first paycheck, which could be a few weeks away, so they need some help. As far as when we plan to actually take everything to the banks, that depends on how much in donations we actually get – if we end up getting a lot of donations, we might have to do some staggering so we actually have the room in City Hall for everything and get some things out sooner. But we do want to make sure we get everything out sooner rather than later so those banks aren’t out in the cold, so to speak.”
Overall, Young said, she hopes to be able to help local food banks with a lot of donations.
“We would love it if people in the community continued spreading the word for us, we’d love to get as many donations as possible to help as many people as possible,” Young said. “We’ll be officially taking donations through Dec. 8, but if there’s still interest from people in donating, we can absolutely extend that. With this being the City of Liberal’s first time doing something like this, we don’t entirely know what to expect, but we’re excited to see what we get and see the generosity of the community.”
