Feeding Through Faith

from The Mountain Spirit Fall/Winter 2022

In the News

BY SHANNON HOLBROOK

When you enter The Kitchen in Moulton, Alabama, the rich aromas of savory roasted turkey and brown-sugared ham greet you as warmly as the big smiles and firm handshakes of the volunteers welcoming you inside. Friends old and new fill the cozy space with their laughter and chatter, enjoying a hot, homecooked meal at the area’s only soup kitchen.

Lashundra Craig, the founder and director of the Church of Christ Food Pantry, known as The Kitchen, ladles out sweet-spoken affirmations to other volunteers and patrons from behind a heaping pan of buttery mashed potatoes. Feeding people is Craig’s language of love, and she offers a generous spoonful here.

The Kitchen, a new partner agency of Operation Sharing, receives items like food, cleaning supplies, and furniture for distribution throughout the community as needed. “We find the need in the community and fill it,” Craig said. “People are so glad to have these things.”

Craig feeds her hometown and the rural communities of Lawrence and Morgan Counties struggling with food insecurity. Every Tuesday and Thursday, over 100 cars start to line up an hour early, wrapping around the building to pick up meals for the week, and they keep coming from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m.

“I hate for anyone to go hungry and there was such a need for a food pantry here,” said Craig, who started The Kitchen in 2005. “We started with seven volunteers, and now we have 25.”

CAP’s Operation Sharing Program serves all 13 Appalachian states, from New York to Mississippi. “We are able to expand our impact and our mission by partnering with organizations like the Church of Christ Food Pantry,” said Brian Conley, who coordinates CAP's partnerships outside of Kentucky. “We are excited to have three partner agencies in Alabama.”

The donations from Operation Sharing help Craig to continue to impact her community and help more people. She had been saving and giving her own money to local parents who didn’t have enough to put on their children’s school lunch accounts. “I really wanted a soup kitchen because I wanted to offer hot meals, especially for the kids and elderly,” she said. “There are few affordable grocery options here. Many of our elderly receive just $16 in food stamps a month.”

The local agriculture extension office helped Craig establish a community garden behind The Kitchen, to provide fresh produce and help residents learn to grow their own food. The garden is managed by her brother, Marcus Echols, who Craig said has been integral to The Kitchen’s success from the start.

The soup kitchen is becoming a type of community center. Along with the community meals, The Kitchen donates meals to the area’s homeless population and hosts cooking classes and recipe demonstrations, like this past summer’s peach salsa class for the youth given by the extension office. During the pandemic, it became a drive-thru pantry.

Craig donates her time, working six days a week with no salary. She is trying to secure grants for funding. She credits local businesses for donating money to help open the pantry. “If it wasn’t for them, we wouldn’t be open,” she said. “But I always have enough to pay the bills, to keep the lights and electric on and feed people. God always provides what we need.”

Visit the COC Food Pantry Facebook group page to learn more about the mission of The Kitchen.