Ogden food pantry to distribute big gift

OGDEN — You know things are bad when a person can't buy toilet paper, soap or shampoo, not to mention food.

On Friday, Northern Utah Catholic Community Services will begin distributing food and hygiene baskets to 1,200 needy families in northern Utah thanks to a donation from Great Salt Lake Minerals Corp.

Trucks arrived Monday at the Joyce Hansen Hall Food Bank in Ogden bearing 10,438 pounds of food and hygiene items worth about $12,000. It's the largest single donation the food bank has received in 2009, said Marcie Valdez, director of the food pantry and Northern Utah Catholic Community Services.

It's a targeted donation for gift baskets containing food for holiday festivities: sweet potatoes, cranberries, mixed fruit, pineapple, apples, oranges, gelatin desserts, gravies and candy canes. Turkeys, which the food pantry received from elsewhere, will be included in the gift baskets, too.

Great Salt Lake Minerals' donation also covered shampoo, soap, toothpaste and toilet paper for the baskets.

This is the second year in a row Great Salt Lake Minerals has made a large year-end donation to northern Utah's largest food pantry and food bank.

"We are honored to help our neighbors in need," said Corey Milne, GSL Minerals' site manager, in a news release.

Valdez said her agency is lucky to have a partnership with GSL Minerals.

"It's important for everyone to have happy holidays," Valdez said, as truckloads of food were loaded onto pallets and weighed. "It's pretty awesome."

In September and October, the pantry was feeling bare, Valdez said. But a recent food drive brought in 35,000 pounds of food to help the pantry in its service of 5,000 families each year.

The gift baskets aim to give a little extra help during the holidays, Valdez said.

Sherry Tolman, Great Salt Lake Minerals' community contributions coordinator, said she has the best job in the world. Tolman asks corporate folks for a donation budget and then gets to see that money help the community, she said.

"Twelve hundred families; that's thousands of people," Tolman said.

Valdez said she's seen more and more families — especially first-time families — coming to request help from the food pantry.

Beginning Friday, families who have signed up to receive a food-and-hygiene basket will pick them up. Families who haven't signed up may call 801-394-5944. They must show proof of low income or have a food card to receive help.

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