Life Church of Gautier provides community food giveaway

GAUTIER, Miss. (WLOX) - Life Church of Gautier worked to provide the community with free groceries on Wednesday.

Nearly 100 people moved through the line within two hours.

“The need has been so great lately with the food prices going up,” pastor assistant Kimberly Broughton said. “We went from every Friday we would have eight people, thinking that was, wow, a lot, to we’ve been serving 30 to 40 people on a Friday.”

Wednesday’s event was the first food distribution the church has held after teaming up with Feeding the Gulf Coast.

The nonprofit provided the donations to hand out.

“We were amazed at the stuff they brought here today. So, I mean, we’ve had vegetables, fruits, salad,” pastor Shirley Stiltner said. “They’re leaving here with not a box with a quarter full, but a box overflowing. And we just think that’s so exciting and such a blessing to be a blessing in our community.”

Several volunteers showed up to help out from Home of Grace, a faith-based addiction recovery center.

“We’ve actually had a lot of people come out. We put a lot of hard work into it. It’s been going really good,” volunteer David Hull said. “It just feels good to be able to help out.”

Pastor Stiltner says they hope to have food giveaways more regularly in the future.

“I think it’s really great,” resident Joslynn Hansley told WLOX. “I used to work in the food pantry at my old church before we had to close it shortly for budget reasons. And I think it’s a great thing that they can keep this up and running.”

If you would like to help out, you can do so by donating food items to the church or participating in Mayor Casey Vaughan’s upcoming can food drive.

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