The Gilmer Community Food Pantry will mark two decades of providing food to local residents next month.
A 20th anniversary reception is scheduled for Monday, May 3, at the pantry facility at 5273 Highway 52 East. Food pantry director Allen Triebel said anyone who’s ever volunteered at the pantry is invited to attend.
“The event is for present and past volunteers. We are inviting our founding fathers and mothers, as well as the first generation of volunteers from our original Sailors Drive location, to attend,” Triebel said.
“We, the current generation of volunteers, stand on the shoulders of those founding volunteers. (They) were there at the very beginning and are invited to meet with the current generation and visit our newest facility.”
The food pantry incorporated as a 501(c)(3) nonprofit on May 8, 2001. It operated out of smaller locations, first on Sailors Drive and then Old Highway 5, before moving to its current Highway 52 address in 2013.
It is still operated solely by volunteers, Triebel noted.
“It was (almost) 20 years ago that the pantry was incorporated into an organization whose sole mission was to provide food for those in need. We decided to celebrate (the anniversary) on May 3 because May 8 is on a Saturday,” he noted.
The food pantry only has records dating back only to 2007, but, in those 14 years, it has distributed more than 5.4 million pounds of food locally, Triebel noted.
“As a comparison, the heaviest object ever weighed, per the Guinness Book of World Records, was the revolving service structure of the launch pad at the Kennedy Space Center. It weighed 4,860,000 pounds,” he added.