Food insecurity has continued to increase in Bon Homme County as those who volunteer with the Feeding South Dakota food distributions have noticed each month, as well as a continued increase in utilization of the Bon Homme and Scotland Food Pantries. Little relief is in sight with the prices of everything increasing. In order to assist individuals and families to have Christmas dinner, or to have enough food to feed their children during Christmas vacation from school, members of the Bon Homme Food Pantry board packed Christmas boxes December 6 and delivered the boxes December 7 in the five towns in the county.

In 2018, the Christmas box delivery assisted 153 households; in 2019, 203 households ; in 2020, 225 households; 255 households in 2021 and this year, 280 households. Boxes were packed and delivered to those 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 Christmas box committee as someone who could use some help during the holidays.

The process to fill the boxes began at the end of September, with the Christmas box committee meeting to decide on the items for the boxes and to begin gathering the names of the recipients. The Bon Homme School District secretaries in Springfield, Tabor and Tyndall and the district office; Sara Hento in Avon and Peggy Schelske in Scotland were a great help in gathering the forms and getting the names of the families to the committee. Again this year, due to anticipated difficulties with receiving products, the orders for food for the boxes were placed the first week in October and thankfully, everything ordered arrived in time. Christmas box committee members estimated the number of recipients for this year based on the increases of the past few years, then sent out bid forms to the grocery stores and ordered the food for the boxes. During the process, the orders had to be increased due to the increased numbers of recipients. Doug Van Emmerick and Sarah Papke worked hard to make sure that all the products arrived in time. Food for the boxes was ordered from Doug’s Food Center in Springfi eld and Cahoy’s General Store in Tyndall. Once the food was ordered, lists of recipients for each town were put together and organized to assist with the process of packing and delivering the boxes and labels were run to be placed on the boxes to make it easier for those delivering. The breakdown of the number of households by town is as follows: Avon – 28; Scotland – 56; Springfield – 69; Tabor – 27 and Tyndall – 100.

The three-day process began with the delivery of the food items to the Tyndall community center December 5, when the boxes and pallets arrived in preparation for packing the boxes. Terry Gregg, Dick Jones and Doug Van Emmerik assisted with moving the pallets of food into the building. The items were set up in order in an assembly line around three sides of the building to make the process of filling the boxes go smoothly. The total weight of the hams was over 2,700 pounds! Some of the other numbers are 768 cans of fruit; 1,500 cans of vegetables; 740 boxes of cereal; 1,400 pounds of flour and 1,140 pounds of sugar. Boxes also contained margarine, spaghetti, spaghetti sauce, noodles, 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. The Danzig Baptist Church Ladies Mission Group and the church youth group added to the boxes this year, as they filled 280 Christmas treat sacks which were included in each box. Each box also contained a Christmas card from the food pantry board, which was signed for the board by Shirley Sutera.

December 6, 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 saved 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 again completed packing all the boxes for the households in just a little over two hours!

December 7, the date of the distribution, volunteers began arriving at the community center late in the afternoon and early evening, where they received the list of recipients with their addresses for their towns and to pick up the boxes of food and bags of ham and margarine.

Those assisting with preparations for packing as well as packing and organizing the boxes were Alice Petrik, Lori and Dan Krier, Jim Pisano and Doug Van Emmerik, Springfield; Peggy Schelske, Jay Weidenbach, Rudy and Diana Jerke and James Streyle, Scotland and the following from Tyndall, Gary and Connie Hawks, Susan Tjeerdsma, Julie Schenkel, Ron and Janet Wagner, Sheila and Zane Kremer, Shirley Sutera, Katy and Brody Cihak, Terry Gregg and Dick Jones. Boxes were delivered by volunteers from the communities in the county by: Lori and Dan Krier, Jim Pisano, Doug Magee, Leonard Magee, Steve Mueller, Bernie Kastein, Carolyn Kastein, Doug Haug, Deb Haug, Merlin Tolsma, Cindy Tolsma and Lawrence Namminga in Springfield; Kevin Tjeerdsma, Avon fire chief and members of the Avon Fire Department; Rev. Andy Bueber, Sally Bueber, Peggy Schelske, Dennis Bietz, Verlyn Jerke and James Streyle in Scotland; Ken Carda, fire chief; Vicky Carda, Allison Carda, Greg and Laurie Rothschadl and Roger Dvoracek in Tabor and Jamie Muller, fire chief and members of the Tyndall Fire Department and EMS – Tim Hajek, Dustin Cuka, Brent, Amanda and Ellie Bult, Brett Rathgeber, Zach Heesch, Lee Hoerth, Mike Schmidt, Cole Humpal, Eric Tycz, Dick Jones, Joel Humpal, Francis Koster, Eric Elsberry, Kelly Young, Ron Wagner, Justin Wagner, Sheila Kremer, Zane Kremer, Katy Cihak, Brody Cihak and Jacob Cihak in Tyndall.

The food pantry Christmas box committee greatly appreciates the monetary donations from the public which assisted in making the holidays a little brighter for those in need, the assistance from the volunteers with packing and distributing the boxes, as well as the City of Tyndall for allowing the committee to use the community center for packing the boxes and the use of the old Tyndall ambulance for delivering the boxes.