Potato Drop Project delivers potatoes to help feed the hungry in Washington County

    Local truck driver Wayne Horras hauled 42,000 pounds of potatoes into Mount Pleasant and rural Packwood Saturday to be distributed to food banks, churches and other organizations through a Potato Drop project.

    Through the combined efforts of the Prairie View United Methodist Church Men, the Pekin Ministerial Association, the Mobile United Methodist Missionaries and the Mount Pleasant United Methodist Church Missions Committee, the potatoes were brought to the area for the fifth Potato Drop project in the last six years.

    The Washington County Development Center (WCDC) received 300 pounds of potatoes Saturday. Renee Pfeifer, the vice president of facility services at WCDC, said her organization takes the potatoes from the mammoth 50-pound bags and puts them into more manageable 10-pound bags, and then distributes them to WCDC participants.

    ?If we have any leftover potatoes, we use them at the center, because we prepare hot meals every day,? said Pfeifer. 

     Pfeifer said that being a non-profit means having to cut back often on expenses.

    ?Our budget is pretty tight,? she said. ?The potatoes supplement our meals, and it really helps the consumers. Once they pay all of their utilities, their budget is tight, too.?

    The WCDC has received potatoes for the past three or four years. Pfeifer said this year?s potato drop-off was a success, and that she is excited for next year?s event.

    Washington County HACAP received 650 pounds of potatoes. RenElla Crawford, operations manager at HACAP, said the potatoes will be put in food boxes and given out in the month of December.

    ?We?re giving them out as soon as we can,? she said. ?It helps those families in need. It?s too bad we don?t have something like this year-round. It?d be great to get potatoes every month.?

For the full story, see the Dec. 1 edition of The Washington Evening Journal