Generous donation helps BREAD

Walter Sprague
Art and Culture Reporter
 
With a generous donation from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, the BREAD office will distribute Thanksgiving baskets to families in the area. On Wednesday, Nov. 3, trucks of canned and dry foods arrived at the food pantry. The church delivered shipments that went to food pantries in Sundance, Gillette and Newcastle. Latter-day Saints representative Kim Austin of Fort Collins, Colorado, said the church grows and processes the food and then ships the products to Salt Lake City. From there, it distributes to food banks around the country.
“We send out 15 to 20 trucks every week,” Austin said, “Each truck can carry about 40,000 pounds of food. We send those shipments out to cities all over America at no cost to them.”
The shipment that came into the Newcastle BREAD office was part of a 20,000-pound shipment, much of which stayed in Newcastle. However, Mike Dodd, the Upton Food Bank director, took a large trailer filled to the top to Upton. The shipment was loaded onto the trailer by volunteers from both Upton and Newcastle.
Another shipment that was scheduled to arrive in Newcastle on Nov. 10 was supposed to have a lot of turkeys, which were also raised and processed by the church. These were going to be a part of the Thanksgiving baskets. However, according to Ken Pitlick, director of BREAD, the shipment was spoiled when it came into the distribution facility in Salt Lake City. While another consignment of meat, mostly beef, and pork is arriving on Wednesday, that meat is for the regular food distribution to the families of Newcastle. 
Pitlick said that meat vouchers would be part of the Thanksgiving baskets due to the generous donations from many sources. Those vouchers can be used at Decker’s Market this year. The size of the baskets and the meat voucher amount depends on family size. All baskets are on a first-come, first-serve basis.
“We trade off with the vouchers,” Pitlick said, “One year they are good at Deckers. The next time will be Woody’s (Food Center). This year it is with Decker’s.”
Dodd said that the typical government donations to Upton were slim this year, unlike other years where there had been plenty of assistance. 
“The church really came through for us,” Dodd said, “You get kind of worried about where the next donations come from, and we were looking pretty slim. This shipment from the LDS church greatly helped us out. This shipment will last us for quite a while.”
Pitlick also expressed his gratitude to the church. He said that the shelves in the BREAD office were getting pretty empty.
“The shipment came in at the right time,” Pitlick said, “Thanks to them, our shelves have filled up in a big way. Thanksgiving is not going to be a problem at all.”
Newcastle residents who would like to get a Thanksgiving basket from the BREAD office, as well as meal vouchers redeemable at Decker’s, can pick up distributions from Monday, Nov. 22, through Wednesday, Nov. 24. The food bank is open from 9:30 a.m. to 1 p.m. The address is 627 Pine St. in Newcastle, next to the Weston County Senior Center. For more information, call BREAD at 746-3542.