Why Blue Barrel Sunday? 

Every month on the second Sunday of the month, we encourage you to pick up a Blue Barrel Bag and return the next week with food for our God’s Pantry.  

Why do we do this?  What difference does it make? 

St. Luke’s food pantry is one of four distribution sites serving Fayette County residents. Each site serves neighbors who are experiencing food insecurity. Eligible households are screened using specific criteria set by God’s Pantry and are referred to one of the distribution sites.  They may visit the food pantry up to two times in a calendar month and pick up commodity foods one time per month. Seniors may also receive “Senior Commodities” at St. Luke on the 2nd Monday of each month.   

St Luke’s regular pantry serves Monday through Friday. Food supplies are delivered each day from the main pantry. Food comes from community contributions (such as the blue barrels here at St. Luke and at Kroger), corporate partners, and from purchases through the pantry’s cooperative through grants and pantry funds. Recently, contributions from the general community and corporate supporters have been much lower than in the past due to a variety of factors.  

How far does the food go?  Our food-receiving households receive food that is meant to last for 5-7 days, based on family size, and we serve an average of 35 households each day.  Assuming that all guests were small households,  that means that we distribute 1225 total food items each day! When available, each household receives three meat choices, one dozen eggs, and a carton of milk.  On those days, we distribute an additional 1050 cans, packages or boxes of food items! Another way to look at the sheer volume of food is we distribute an average of 800 lbs of food each day, which is 2 TONS of food each week! With the aforementioned decline in community contributions, the St Luke Blue Barrel Bag contributions make up a major contribution to food on the shelves for our neighbors. You really are making a difference; one can at a time. Thank you for your support!

This month

This month we are in need of canned tomato products of all kinds (diced, stewed, sauces, etc.) as well as spaghetti noodles or other pastas. Thank you for your support!

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