LUBBOCK, Texas- More than 5,600 pounds of ground beef and close to 2,000 gallons of milk were handed out to families across the South Plains this week after a last-minute donation sparked a large community distribution effort.<\/p>\n
The pop-up \u201cprotein market\u201d took place over two days and was organized by Hillside Christian Church, the South Plains Food Bank, First Baptist Church, and Communities in Schools of the South Plains. Each family who drove through received four pounds of ground beef and two gallons of milk per child.<\/p>\n
Christy Cage, program director for Communities in Schools, said the partnership directly supports their mission of removing barriers for students, including food insecurity.<\/p>\n
\u201cOur mission is surrounding students with a community of support so that they can achieve in life,\u201d Cage said. \u201cFood insecurity is one of those barriers, and that\u2019s why we\u2019re here today.\u201d<\/p>\n
Cage said families told her the donation would go a long way, especially heading into the holidays. Many planned to make meals like spaghetti or hamburger helper to stretch the four pounds of beef.<\/p>\n
On the first day alone, volunteers served more than 240 families. One day two over a thousand families. <\/p>\n
The donation came together quickly. Hillside Christian Church Pastor Brad Ingram said he received a call just days earlier about thousands of pounds of frozen beef available in the community. He immediately reached out to local partners.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe said, \u2018Hey, let\u2019s get thousands of families meat and milk,\u2019\u201d Ingram said. \u201cIt may not be much, but we can definitely make a difference with that.\u201d<\/p>\n
All of the meat and milk distributed were locally sourced and remained within the community. Ingram said one family broke into tears when they received their box, moved by the unexpected support.<\/p>\n
South Plains Food Bank COO Travis Johnson said his team helped provide trucks, drivers and the logistics needed to move the large donation quickly.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey needed trucks and manpower and we\u2019re the experts at doing food distribution, so we were just happy to fill that gap,\u201d Johnson said.<\/p>\n
Johnson, who helped hand out food both days, said the timing matters. With the holidays approaching, beef and milk are \u201cstaples in many households,\u201d and the food bank wants families to know support is always available.<\/p>\n
Cage said families who missed the event can still reach out for help.<\/p>\n
\u201cReach out to your Communities in Schools site coordinator on your campus,\u201d she said. \u201cWe\u2019d love to get you the resources and help you need.\u201d<\/p>\n
Communities in Schools serves campuses across Lubbock ISD, Lubbock-Cooper, Frenship, Shallowater, Dimmitt, Hereford, Plainview, Amarillo and surrounding areas.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"LUBBOCK, Texas- More than 5,600 pounds of ground beef and close to 2,000 gallons of milk were handed…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":54447,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[168,170,169],"class_list":{"0":"post-54446","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-lubbock","8":"tag-lubbock","9":"tag-lubbock-headlines","10":"tag-lubbock-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54446","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=54446"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54446\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/54447"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=54446"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=54446"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=54446"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}