Hays County Food Bank helps families put food on the table during the holiday season

(Editor's Note: This story was updated on Friday, Nov. 3 to reflect that the registration for the holiday meal boxes has closed.)

HAYS COUNTY — Thanksgiving can be a joyous time to gather with family and friends, but for some, it can be challenging to put a full meal on the table. That’s where the Hays County Food Bank comes in.

The Hays County Food Bank — which has been committed to improving lives through food assistance programs, nutrition education and advocacy since 1984 — is holding its annual Turkeys Tackling Hunger program for individuals to register to receive a holiday meal box ahead of Thanksgiving. The boxes will include a 14-16 pound uncooked frozen turkey and ingredients to make traditional side dishes that can be used to create a home-cooked Thanksgiving meal.

“This is the 17th year of it. We definitely want to make sure that everybody can prepare that particular meal if they want to. Anyone who's interested in having a family gathering is not going to be blocked by income from having it. That's just something that has grown over time. We all know what it's like at the grocery store, money doesn't go as far as it used to,” said Hays County Food Bank Executive Director Lisa Young. “People don't have an extra budget because it's the holidays. So, we want to make sure that everyone can go ahead and prepare this and to gather in this way.”

Young said that her team has seen the need for holiday meal boxes, along with weekly food distributions, increase. In previous years, there would be a total of 1,500 boxes available for distribution, but the food bank has increased that number to 1,800 this year.

Just as they would for the Hays County Food Bank’s regular weekly food distributions, those interested in receiving a holiday meal box will be required to fill out an application.

“They will be asked about their current monthly income and that is required. We are getting a lot of the foods from the USDA, and so we're required to get that information. They'll be asked how many people [are] in their household, if they're already a food bank client and then their address and where they want to pick up their turkey. We have more than one location for that,” said Young. “There are some demographic [questions like]  if they have children or if they have elderly people in their home. And that helps us with the grant application.”

Each household may only receive one holiday meal box. The person who signs up must be the one picking up the box, unless there is a designated proxy listed on the application.

“If your daughter was going to pick it up for you, that can be designated on the form,” Young said.

As of Tuesday, Oct. 31, the holiday meal box registration closed due to the food bank reaching maximum capacity.

Members of the community who are interested in helping the Hays County Food Bank are encouraged to volunteer by working one of the following shifts: drivers, food rescue/processing, warehouse, distribution, special events and home delivery drivers. There’s a place for anyone who is wanting to help the food bank’s response to hunger in the county.

“I would urge them to go to our website and get the process started to be one of our volunteers, because it's a lot of fun and it's very rewarding work. We're doing something every day of the week, so there should be more people here joining in on the fun and helping the community,” Young said. “One thing that I think a lot of people don't know about us is that we're actually supporting about 30 other organizations that are getting their food from us to have a distribution at their location. For instance, we provide a lot of the bags that go out to people for the Salvation Army, we provide food to the Hays County women's shelter for their clients, and just in different churches and schools and the Bobcat Bounty pantry on-campus.”

For more information about programs, distributions and volunteer opportunities at the Hays County Food Bank, visit www.haysfoodbank.org.