Manna Food Pantry offers assistance for county residents
The Manna Pantry is located at 620 N Cemetery Road. The building serves all of Canadian County.
By Jacob Sturm
news@mustangpaper.com
The Manna Pantry will be holding a fundraiser this September with the funds raised going
toward a major project to benefit the citizens of Canadian County for years to come.
The fundraiser, called the Main Event for 2023, will be a live and silent auction and a dinner for
those who participate. Sherri Rogers, the director of the Manna Food Pantry, said the Main
Event will be at the Palace Event Center on Banner Road. It will take place September 7 and
potential auction items will be viewable from 5pm until 6pm.
“We’re an emergency food pantry,” Rogers said. “And about a year and a half ago, we used to
serve just Yukon or kids who went to Yukon schools, but now that we’ve moved out to our new
facility we now serve all of Canadian County.”
That increase of residents eligible for the food pantry benefits have seen the Manna Food
Pantry numbers more than triple since making the move. Rogers reiterated that point, and said
the pantry has seen more than 500 families each of the past three months.
With that extra need being catered to at the center, the pantry is in need of a storage facility to
help.
“What the Main Event is for is we need a storage facility there,” Rogers said. “Our warehouse
area is busting at the seams, and to store it somewhere else we have to have it climate
controlled. So, we’re raising funds to help build a storage facility for the Together We Center.”
The center is located at 620 N Cemetery Road near Trinity Baptist Church. Currently, the
warehouse area the Manna Food Pantry has is about 300-square-feet and the group is running
out of room.
September is also the Hunger Action Month with the Regional Food Bank. The food pantry has
also been in need of cereal on a consistent basis, along with oatmeal and pancake mix.
“A lot of things are donated,” Rogers said. “I would say probably 80% of the food we have, and
of what we get is donated. The biggest food drive is the postal carrier’s food drive in May… We
collected 25,000 pounds of food in May.”
There are also a handful of stores who donate to the Manna Food Pantry on a weekly basis.
Rogers mentioned Sprouts, Target, Homeland, Wal-Mart, Smart Saver, Crest and ALDI’s as
contributing stores. She estimated the pantry makes about 100 retail pickups each month.
“It’s a great blessing that these stores donate what they can’t sell,” Rogers said.
The pantry also has an estimated 150 volunteers help when they can throughout the week.
People around the county will need to provide proof of residency and a photo ID in order to
access the pantry. They can go shopping through the pantry and the Woven Boutique once a
month, but can return for perishable items every two weeks.
The pantry is open from 5pm to 8pm on Monday and Thursday, from 3pm to 6pm on Tuesday,
and from 9am until noon on Wednesday and Saturday.
There is also a card they will have on hand to help with the quantity of items they can choose
from (depending on family size).
There is also access to the Faith Clinic for anyone who does not have insurance. The Together
We Center combines the three services, with Mustang Mayor Brian Grider serving as Executive
Director of the Together We Center.
Once the extra climate-controlled storage facility is completed following the fundraising, the
benefits will be abundant.
“It’ll just mean that we’ll have that food available as we need to stock,” Rogers said. “… We’d
be able to better rotate our inventory.”
“We’re very grateful for all of the community support, and we’re trying to get known moreso in
our newer areas like Mustang and El Reno,” Rogers said.
