Food insecurity has continued to increase in Bon Homme County as those who volunteer with the Feeding SD food distributions have noticed each month, as well as a continued increase in utilization of the Bon Homme Food Pantry. In order to assist individuals and families to have Christmas dinner, or have enough food to feed their children during Christmas vacation from school, members of the Bon Homme Food Pantry board packed Christmas boxes December 8 and delivered the boxes December 9 in the five towns in the county. This year, boxes were packed and delivered to 225 households who had signed up for holiday assistance through the schools; those who receive monthly commodity boxes for the elderly; those who regularly utilize either the Tyndall or Scotland food pantry, and those whose names were submitted to the board as someone who could use some help during the holidays. The number of those needing assistance is definitely increasing--in 2018, the Christmas box delivery assisted 153 households; in 2019, 203 households were assisted

The process to fill the boxes began in October with the Christmas box committee meeting to decide on the items in the boxes and begin gathering the names of the recipients. Christmas box committee members Sheila Kremer, Shirley Sutera, Connie and Gary Hawks and Janet Wagner planned the distribution, organized the recipient lists by town, sent out bid forms to the grocery stores, and then ordered the food for the boxes. Food for the boxes was ordered from Doug’s Food Center in Springfield, Cahoy’s General Store in Tyndalland Feeding South Dakota as well as some being utilized from the shelves at the Food Pantry.

The process began with the delivery of the food items December 7, when the auditorium in Tyndall was filled with boxes and pallets in preparation for packing the boxes. The items were set up in order in an assembly line to make the process of filling the boxes go smoothly. The total weight of the hams was over 2000 pounds! Some of the other numbers are 552 cans of fruit; 1152 cans of vegetables; 650 boxes of cereal; 1125 pounds of flour and 900 pounds of sugar. Boxes also contained spaghetti, spaghetti sauce, noodles, macaroni and cheese, canisters of oatmeal, boxes of crackers, marshmallows, cake mix, brownie mix, stuffing mix, instant potatoes, peanut butter, jelly, as well as Kleenex and dish soap. Each box also contained a Christmas card from the Food Pantry board, which was hand-written by Shirley Sutera.

December 8, the boxes were packed by household size, this year ranging from 1 to 11 in the household, labeled with the recipient’s names and organized by town to make it easier for those picking up the boxes for distribution. Gary Hawks had been saving meat, banana and egg boxes all summer at the Food Pantry for use for the distribution and the mountain of boxes was quickly depleted. Utilizing the assembly line process, the volunteers completed packing all the boxes for the households in just over three hours!

The morning of December 9, the date of the distribution, the hams were delivered and bagged and placed with the box for each recipient. Volunteers began arriving at the auditorium at 9 a.m. where they received the list of recipients with their addresses for their towns and to pick up the boxes and bags of ham; by 5 p.m., all the boxes were out the door to be distributed.

Those assisting with preparations for packing as well as packing the boxes were Lori and Dan Krier, Springfield; Rev. Andy Bueber, Shannon Fanning, Rudy and Diana Jerke and James Streyle, Scotland; Sarah Hento, Avon and the following from Tyndall: Gary and Connie Hawks, Julie Schenkel, Ron and Janet Wagner, Katy Cihak, Sheila and Zane Kremer. Boxes were delivered by volunteers from the communities in the county by: Dan and Lori Krier as well as other volunteers in Springfield; Pastor Aaron Rush, Pastor Bill Van Gerpen and other clergy and volunteers in Avon; Rev. Andy Bueber and James Streyle in Scotland; Don and Kathy Kortan in Tabor and Eric Elsberry, Ron Wagner, Janet Wagner, Sheila Kremer and Katy Cihak in Tyndall.

The Food Pantry board greatly appreciates the generous food and monetary donations from the public which assisted in making the holidays a little brighter for those in need, as well as the city of Tyndall for allowing the board to use the auditorium for packing the boxes and the use of the second ambulance to deliver the boxes in Tyndall.