Ada church serves 264 families in need of food

Asbury Methodist Church hosted a food giveaway Thursday in its ongoing mission to meet the needs of the Ada area's food-insecure residents and families. “This is a bi-monthly food pantry,” said Travis Muse, Asbury pastor. “We're set up to serve 264 families today, with about $200 worth of groceries each.”

Muse described the event as “controlled chaos.”

The church partners with Regional Food Bank of Oklahoma. “All this food came from the food bank yesterday on a big semi,” Muse said. “They brought it in on pallets, and then we sorted, organized and put it into boxes, to get it ready to hand it out to anybody that comes up.”

Muse said one of their goals is to give away all of the food.

“We never want to have any food left over,” Muse said. “We don't want to store it. We'd rather get it onto the tables and into the homes of those that need it.”

Recipients got four boxes of food, one full of staples and grains, one full of meat products and frozen products, one full of bakery items like bread, cereals and crackers, and one box full of fresh fruits and vegetables.

The meat box included butter, Canadian bacon, ham, spare ribs, chicken and pork loin. “In addition,” Muse said, “our delivery guy blessed us with 1,200 sacks of grapes and 900 bags of carrots.”

Volunteers from Asbury Methodist and from Grace Methodist Fellowship worked for much of the morning to roll shopping carts from the church's Family Life Center to the parking area, where cars lined up around the block to receive the food.

Some of the volunteers were from Southern Oklahoma Addiction Recovery (SOAR) — volunteers like Rafieal Conway from McAlester. “The reason I'm here in Ada is because of my situation,” Conway said. “I had a drug problem in McAlester. My purpose of being here in Ada today is to overcome that, which I feel I have. Basically, I have dedicated myself to become true to myself again.”

According to USDA guidelines, a family can receive these donations once a month, but Asbury distributes twice a month. Due to the coronavirus situation, the church set aside those guidelines to streamline the giveaway and improve social distancing. “We'd rather a family double up by mistake,” Muse added, “than somebody not get what they need.”