“We’ve never had to put that sign up before,” Local food pantries struggle to keep shelves stocked

JOPLIN, Mo. — Organizations that help residents without enough to eat are themselves in need of assistance.

"No, we've never had to put that sign up before," said Dianna Gurley, Executive Director, Souls Harbor.

For the first time in her 14 years at Souls Harbor, Gurley has closed the center's food pantry, and she's not sure when she'll be able to reopen it.

"Normally what we had in this pantry would have lasted all the way until the holiday season, and we would have been just fine. This year that's not happening. We're not even till the end of October, and we're already putting up the sign saying the pantry is closed until we can get more in," said Gurley.

She says the need for food has simply overtaken the amount of donations coming in.

"We've just had to do, you know, between twenty-five and fifty food boxes a day, and so it's been, it's been pretty tight already this season, but now it's getting to critical."

But shelves aren't just bare at Souls Harbor.

"Donations is what we live off of most of the time. Like I said, we can buy some stuff to fill in, but you can't even do that right now, so donations are greatly needed," said Debra Gaskill, Case Worker, Salvation Army of Jasper, Newton Counties.

The Salvation Army of Jasper, Newton Counties also give out food boxes. Gaskill says their shelves too are running on empty.

"We don't have a lot of soup right now, no fruit, so when we're making those food boxes we're limited in what we can put in there, so we try to make up with other things that we have more of," said Gaskill.

Both ministries are hoping food donations will pick back up to meet the demand.