The Samaritans food pantry was established in December of 1978 in the basement of a Pauls Valley church. The non-profit organization helped feed eight Pauls Valley families that first year – a total of 29 people – at a cost of just over $1,300.
For the next 40 years, Samaritans focused their efforts on providing emergency food assistance to Pauls Valley’s less fortunate.
And then COVID-19 hit. When the pandemic began in the spring of 2020, the Samaritans’ executive board quietly made the decision to transition from a Pauls Valley community pantry to a countywide pantry, serving every community in Garvin County “Our philosophy was – our board made the decision – if you humbled yourself enough to ask for food and you were from Garvin County, we were not going to turn you away,” Samaritans President Bonnie Meisel said. “We didn’t advertise it. We just let it spread through word of mouth.”
The immediate need was so great that spring, the board also made the decision to serve every client every month, instead every other month as they had done previously.
Within a few months’ time, the pantry’s caseload had tripled or quadrupled, Meisel said, severely stretching the Samaritans’ limited resources.
In the early days of the pandemic, the pantry was able to tap into additional food resources as federal pandemic relief packages began rolling out and food and funding were pushed to entities like the Regional Food Bank of Oklahoma, which passed those resources on to local pantries including Samaritans. But as the initial waves of the pandemic subsided, so did many of those additional resources.
The Samaritans’ pantry is run completely by volunteers and primarily funded by donations, most from within the Pauls Valley community, along with grants that the organization writes.
The pantry partners with the Regional Food Bank of Oklahoma to purchase the bulk of the food it distributes, which allows the food dollars to go further, but the pantry often has to buy things like milk, bread, eggs and cheese locally.
As food prices have skyrocketed in recent months, the pantry has continued to experience a record number of clients, leaving the non-profit fighting to secure the resources necessary to continue to fulfill their mission of helping those in the county struggling with food insecurity.
In December 2022, the pantry served 382 households – more than 1,200 individuals – at a cost of more than $15,000.
“We are continuing to break all previously held records in the numbers served,” said Lou Hall, who has been with Samaritans since its inception.
In the last six months of 2022 the pantry added 242 new families to its client list. Those families represent 420 adults, 478 children and 362 senior citizens.
The Samaritans’ executive board recently decided to return to the pre-pandemic practice of serving client households every other month, a decision Meisel and Hall said is based on budget constraints, as well as wear and tear on pantry volunteers.
The Samaritans operate with a core group of volunteers, the average age of which is 72, according to Hall. Those core volunteers are joined each week by volunteers from the community, local businesses and area churches, who help fill food boxes for distribution to clients and stock pantry shelves.
“We could not do what we do without all our community volunteers and churches. We’re grateful for their support,” Meisel said. “And, we would love to have volunteers from other communities.”
The pantry is currently serving more than 350 families from Garvin County communities other than Pauls Valley, according to Meisel, but Pauls Valley is still providing the lion’s share of donations, as well as volunteer manpower.
It’s a situation Meisel is working to rectify.
“We have taken our mission on the road, so to speak,” said Meisel, who has reached out to community leaders across the county to try to identify individuals and organizations who are willing to contribute to the pantry’s mission, both financially and with volunteers.
“There are very generous individuals in every community in Garvin County,” Meisel said.
The Garvin County Board of Commissioners has also stepped in to help in recent months, establishing a Food Security Program with $150,000 in American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) funds to provide financial support to local non-profit organizations – like Samaritans – running food assistance programs in the county. The food assistance programs are required to submit an application and meet certain federal requirements to be eligible for funding.
The Samaritans food pantry received its first grants from the program in December.
Meisel said without the county grants, “2023 would have started with 359 families losing service.”
For more information on how to volunteer with Samaritans of Pauls Valley, or how to make a financial donation, contact the pantry at 405-207-9077, or by email at samaritans@currently.com.
