TEAM Food Pantry Gets Assistance from Walmart

Usually, (TEAM) food pantry would have received enough food to last the summer from a local food drive. With less donations coming in, the pantry reached a critical mass for food, but a big chain retailer stepped in to help.

On Monday, the Walmart in Ferguson, located at 10741 W. Florissant Ave., provided $5,000 worth of food to TEAM.

“It’s part of our commitment to the local community,” said Rob Fryman, the store manager.

Previously, KSDK reported that the TEAM food pantry had reached critical lows because of the economic conditions and low donations.

“The needs have gone up every year,” Bob Hoff, a volunteer at TEAM, said. “We’ve run critically low. We’ve been really desperate for food.”

On Monday morning, Hoff and a small team of other volunteers from TEAM loaded a 26-foot truck with pallets of canned goods and boxes for the pantry, including cans of green beans, chili, mixed fruit, tuna and peas as well as noodles and potatoes.

Hoff said that the pantry wrote a letter with a list of requested items from Walmart, and by Friday, the items had arrived for them to pick up. The donation comes as a part of Walmart’s $2 billion corporate commitment to making sure that people don’t go hungry.

Despite the large order of food that arrived at the pantry, Hoff said that the donations would only survive two or three weeks. However, he’s hopeful that more food donations will come in during that time.