Lexington Pantry seeks to end hunger and give hope
Volunteers load the bed of a truck with food donations from Lexington Food Pantry Oct. 27, 2021, on the grounds of Saints College in Lexington, Miss. Holmes County supervisors assisted in the delivery of goods to members of the large rural county unable to easily travel to the event. Sarah Warnock/MCIR
By Sarah Warnock
Mississippi Center for Investigative Reporting
Harvest time in the Mississippi Delta, a rolling emerald expanse of crops. The romantic vision is like a mirage against the glaring light of the nutritional disparity borne by residents here – many for generations.
Holmes County, Mississippi, despite a blanket of 764 square miles of fertile, arable soil, knows this disparity all too well.
Mississippi native W. Ralph Eubanks wrote eloquently in the Oxford American. “I always knew when the Delta was approaching, since it seemed as if everything changed when we reached Yazoo City. The kudzu-covered hills disappeared, and the land flattened out completely and became more expansive. By the time we arrived in Mileston, the horizon appeared so endless that it was as if my father and I had entered another world.”
But as Eubanks’ own family found, reaping what is sown has remained seemingly at arm’s length for many poor and mostly Black residents.
Now a diverse group of Mississippians has joined efforts to battle the era of ravaging malnutrition, creating a drive for better health and sustained hope by providing nutritious food in place of high-calorie, low-protein convenience store offerings that have fueled the obesity and diabetes epidemics. Lexington Food Pantry has found a home on the grounds of historic Saints College on Highway 17 in Lexington.
Volunteers with Lexington Food Pantry distribute supplies Oct. 27, 2021, in Lexington, Miss., to residents of Holmes County. Sarah Warnock/MCIR
It may be hard to fathom a place so endlessly rich in soil as home to a population with so many living below the poverty line. But the long line of cars rolling onto the campus of Saints College, at 9 am, on the last Wednesday of October, was undeniable proof of the reality.
Lexington Food Pantry fundraiser Kathleen Hooker Waldrop says the pantry’s mission is “improving health and wellbeing of Holmes County residents by providing access to healthy food, nutrition education, and required resources. Healthy food for a healthy people.”
Johnny Black of Ridgeland, Miss., volunteers Oct. 27, 2021, in Lexington, Miss., with Lexington Food Pantry at Saints College, sorting through boxes of fresh produce supplies, to distribute to residents of Holmes County. The organization’s mission is to improve the health and wellbeing of residents of Lexington and surrounding communities by providing access to healthy food, nutrition awareness, and cooking education. Sarah Warnock/MCIR
Holmes County has a per capita income of less than $15,000 and a population of roughly 25 persons per square mile. MCIR visited the county during the height of COVID-19 in 2020. The lack of decent jobs has led to a massive brain drain, said William Dean Jr., who in 1974 became the first African American elected superintendent of schools in Holmes County. “We just don’t have any industry here,” he said. “If people finish school, they just leave.”
The constant strife African Americans have endured in obtaining and sustaining farms, combined with the industrialization of U.S. agriculture, fueled the Great Migration that led many Black families away from the post-Civil War South. The descendants of those that stayed in the relatively recently desegregated South have not fared as well economically as have the families that emigrated.
Lexington Food Pantry’s board of directors and officers consist of local clergy, some county supervisors and residents. They are aided by community partners and U.S. Department of Agriculture grants, the Mississippi Food Network, Open Table, Aim for Change, Mississippi State University Extension Service, Lexington aldermen, local students and youth organizations, among others. Together, they provide manpower, funding and supplies.
Jackson native and Lexington Food Pantry President Johnny Black raises cattle and started the 501C3 Rabbits of Relevance to contribute, in part, to the pantry’s supply chain.
“The goal is to raise, harvest and distribute 100 rabbits a month to food pantries for free. …each rabbit feeds about four to five people. So, we can give about 5,000 to 6,000 meals a year,” Black said.
The pantry forges on, with distributions planned for the last Wednesday of every month, with plans for a holiday turkey drive and GoFundMe account in the works.
At close of distribution day in October, the pantry collected more than 200 forms with basic demographic information the Mississippi Food Network requires for residents receiving boxes of food. Many drivers picked up boxes for more than one family and for individuals lacking transportation. The pantry gave out 600 boxes with food from the four major food groups.
“In the Bible, you know, in the book of Acts -- they had all things come together. They brought their stuff together to help one another,” Willie Hodges, an elder at Guiding Light Church of God in Christ, said of the new pantry. “And that is what you should teach your kids to do, share.
“Growing up here, you know, when I was a boy, if you had, then your neighbor had. If you didn’t have, and your neighbor had, then you had. We believed in sharing.”
Email Jerry.Mitchell@MississippiCIR.org.
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This story was produced by the Mississippi Center for Investigative Reporting and funded in part by the Fund for Investigative Journalism. It was also produced in partnership with the Community Foundation for Mississippi’s local news collaborative, which is independently funded in part by Microsoft Corp. The collaborative includes MCIR, the Clarion Ledger, the Jackson Advocate, Jackson State University, Mississippi Public Broadcasting and Mississippi Today.
Mississippi Center for Investigative Reporting is a nonprofit news organization that is exposing wrongdoing, educating and empowering Mississippians, and raising up the next generation of investigative reporters. Sign up for our newsletter.
Email Sarah Warnock at sdwarnock@yahoo.com.