Nettleton food pantry closes amid Coronavirus outbreak

Faith Food Pantry in Nettleton is closing it’s doors to keep their workers safe during this pandemic.

Hitting the economy hard and more and more people are in need of food donations.

One food pantry is closing it's doors to keep their workers safe during this pandemic.

Wtva's sydney darden is live in nettleton.

Sydney, this is a big hit for people who are count on the pantry for food right ?

Craig, i spoke with the director of the faith food pantry and he says they service thousands of families every month.

He says the number has only gotten bigger since the coronavirus outbreak.

Jim long says this isn't about lack of resources, this is all about keeping volunteers safe in the midst of a national health crisis nat "we're gonna hunker down and separate ourselves" it's a scary sight to see in the middle of a global pandemic.

Nat "we don't know what we're going to do" a food pantry forced to close because they're too low on man power.

Sot jim long, faith food pantry, director- "most people that work here are 70+.

If we get the virus, it's a death sentence for us.

Faith food pantry director jim long says running one on the largest food pantries in the area during a national crisis is no small task sot jim long- "we do eight to nine hundred boxes, we give everybody 2 boxes of food.

So you're really talking about 16 to 1800 boxes of food and volunteers like nettleton mayor mem riley agree the food pantry is a staple in the community sot- mem riley, mayor - "i work the parking lot every third saturday and i'm telling you, it's an operation.

I'm telling you.

Long says they made several operation adjustments.... nat jim long- "people used to come in here and we had to quit letting them come in here at all."

The mostly senior staff just couldn't risk keeping their doors open sot jim long- " you have to look after yourself.

How much are you willing to give?

Are you willing to give your life to give people food?

Though volunteers and other staff hate to see the operation go sot mem riley, mayor- "it's gonna put a lot of burden on the people running it" long says the future of faith food pantry is far from finished sot jim long- let's get through this and crank this thing back up.

Long says the food pantry plans to reopen as soon as it's safe for volunteers to come back.

In the meantime, long says food pantry's in tupelo and amory agreed to take the extra food and distribute it at their locations we'll have a list of some of those food pantrys on the wtva 9 news website live in nettleton sydney darden wtva 9 news.

Still more news ahead.

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