3 results for month: 02/2021
Partner Profile: Urbandale Food Pantry
While all partner food pantries in the DMARC Food Pantry Network have made adaptations during the pandemic, Urbandale Food Pantry has been especially innovative in its approach to limit the spread of COVID-19 while continuing to provide food to people facing hunger and food insecurity in our community.
To limit physical interactions at the food pantry, visitors place their monthly order for food in an enclosed booth they enter from the exterior of the building. Daily food rescue items are available at another door, where pantry visitors may enter one at a time. The food pantry also incorporates social distancing, a mask policy, sanitizing, and ...
Underscoring the Importance of Interfaith Efforts
On February 8, DMARC’s Coordinator of Interfaith Engagement and state senator, Rev. Sarah Trone Garriott, shared a prayer in the Iowa Senate written by a young Muslim woman who was a previous participant of the Interfaith Youth Leadership Camp, a week-long event DMARC co-hosts every summer with the Comparison Project at Drake University.
Unfortunately, the response to this prayer has not all been positive. It seems some people in our state still react with anger and fear when they come in contact with a faith that is not their own.
The negative responses to this prayer underscore the importance of our interfaith efforts. At DMARC, we ...
DMARC Food Pantry Network Resumes Distribution of USDA Food Boxes
The Des Moines Area Religious Council (DMARC) Food Pantry Network began distributing USDA boxes from the fifth round of the USDA’s Farmers to Families Food Box Program today. DMARC previously participated in the first four rounds of the program from late May to the end of December 2020. Additional funding for the fifth round of the program was included in the federal COVID relief package that passed in late December.
“We are excited to again be participating in the USDA’s Farmers to Families Food Box Program,” said DMARC CEO Matt Unger. “Visitors to DMARC food pantries started receiving these boxes today.”
The boxes contain 20 lbs. ...