Some of the volunteers at the Gilmer Community Food Pantry have occasionally played the role of Willy Wonka over the past year.
No Oompa Loompas or Everlasting Gobstoppers were involved in these activities.
Instead, the food pantry’s Sack Pack team has been acting in the spirit of the classic children’s film with special tokens hidden in some of the bags of weekend food distributed to children at Head Start and Ellijay, Clear Creek and Mountain View Elementary School.
Prior to Halloween, miniature plastic chimpanzees were tucked away in Sack Pack bags. The children who found them were able to go free of charge with their families to Project Chimps, a 200-acre chimpanzee rescue habitat in Morganton.
“About every quarter, we like to do a special thing for the Sack Pack kids. We’re trying to do it about four times a year,” said Lu Hale, the pantry’s Sack Pack program coordinator.
Hale said four families visited the usually closed-to-the-public chimp rescue facility Saturday, Oct. 30. They were accompanied by a few pantry volunteers and their grandchildren, noted Allen Triebel, food pantry director.
“We had a great time,” said Hale. “They have a huge enclosure with concrete walls for safety, and it’s about an hour tour on foot. (The children) went in their costumes, and we had a little costume contest. Haley, one of the chimps, ‘picked’ the winner.”
Project Chimps provided passes for the first-time food pantry outing, while Ellijay’s Country Corner Kitchen provided lunch for the touring families, who were also able to bring home a food box from the pantry, Triebel said.
Limited tours are offered at the sprawling sanctuary where chimps retired from medical research receive lifelong care. The pantry group toured during October’s special “Chimp or Treat” time, Triebel noted.
“They gave us two guides to walk us through, and bad weather did not interfere with the fun learning experience. The kids loved this special outing, and the chimps loved to see everyone dressed for Halloween,” he added.
Hale said the Sack Pack team currently provides 372 bags of food to the four local schools each week, and that number is up a little from last year. They also contribute to a food pantry at Gilmer High School, she said.
The bags contain easy to eat food, and they’re meant to be easily carried home in a child’s backpack.
“There’s two breakfasts, two lunches, milk, juice, fruit and snacks,” said Hale of the Sack Pack contents.
Triebel said the food pantry did a previous Willy Wonka-inspired giveaway for Easter. Children who found golden eggs in their bags got to bring their families to the pantry to shop for groceries.
An annual Christmas event for families is also usually hosted, which the pantry plans to do again this year, Triebel confirmed.
He hopes the “Wonka” Sack Pack activities, as well as the Project Chimps outing, will continue next year.
“I’m going to try to do it again,” said Triebel about the trip.
For more details on the Gilmer Community Food Pantry, see GilmerFoodPantry.org. For more on Project Chimps, see ProjectChimps.org.