Mustard Seed food pantry helps those in need

<p>Democrat photos/Kevin Labotka</p><p>Volunteers at the Mustard Seed food pantry help people in need.</p>

Democrat photos/Kevin Labotka

Volunteers at the Mustard Seed food pantry help people in need.

PRAIRIE HOME, Mo. - The Mustard Seed Pantry at United Methodist Church in Prairie Home is there to help those in need.

The pantry is open from 4 pm- 6 p.m. on the third Thursday of the month.

The food pantry started just over a year ago in August 2016.

Nancy Kixmiller, the director of the food pantry, said that they have helped 35-40 families a month. The pantry gets most of its food from The Food Bank of Central and Northeast Missouri in Columbia. They also get food from local donations from both community members and the Dollar General store in Prairie Home.

The pantry is open once a month, because of the community's small size. Kixmiller said that the community has given positive feed back about the new pantry.

"We have gotten good responses from volunteers and the community," Kixmiller said.

Kixmiller said that if people would like to donate to the food pantry, that items like canned fruit, canned vegetables, as well as anything that has protein in it, would be things that the pantry needs.

"We don't get much protein," Kixmiller said.

If people want to volunteer, Kixmiller said that the best way is to message the United Methodist Church's Facebook page. Then, potential volunteers will have to go through some civil rights training, before they can volunteer. The training is required to protect the privacy of those who the food pantry serves.

The food pantry puts together boxes of food and sets them up, so that the people they are helping can just pick a box. A household of one to four people gets one box of items and households of five or more people get two boxes.

Kixmiller said that she feels that sometimes people are embarrassed to get help from the food pantry, but that they don't need to be.

"We treat everybody with respect and most of our clients feel good about the whole situation," Kixmiller said.