Selem Elks presents a $3000 check to Salem Ministerial Food Pantry. Photo by Bruce Kropp.
The Salem Elks Lodge Wednesday night presented Beacon Grants from the National Elks to two organizations that helps make sure everyone has food.
The Hungry Hearts program that provides lunch to students over the summer will receive $3,500. Marilyn Lewis heads the program.
“We are right on schedule doing like we did last year,” Lewis said. “We’re probably set to do 13,000 lunches again this summer. Some donations have been coming in, and we appreciate those.”
Lewis says the Elks grant will help them have money available to start the program next summer. She reports there have been plenty of volunteers to prepare the sack lunches each week. The program will run through the first two weeks of August before it ends with the start of the school year.
The second grant for $3,000 will go to the Salem Ministerial Alliance. Carol Ann Short says the money comes at a good time.
“We have actually been running low on food because we’re serving so many more people. The $3,000 helps us really give our families a head start for when school starts now. We’re still holding steady at about 650 to 750 familes a month.”
Short says they are looking at the possibility of adding milk to the giveaway items and are also making sure plenty of peanut butter is in supply for families who need to make lunches for their kids as they return to school.
The food pantry is open 1:30 to 5 on Monday and 10 to 1:30 on Thursday at the Grace United Methodist Church.
The Elk’s grant writer Mike Hooe says the Elks has been able to help a number of local organizations.
“I’ve been grant writing now for about eleven years,” Hooe said. “In total over that period, we’ve been able to get over $186,000 that we’ve been able to get to the various charitable and nonprofit organizations in Salem and the immediately surrounding area.”
Hooe says other grants are in the pipeline that will be announced in the future.
