The Link beefs up food pantry

Benjamin Bullard bbullard@cullmantimes.com

The Link beefs up food pantry | News | cullmantimes.com

The food pantry outreach offered by The Link of Cullman County has just gotten a little bit more local — and a whole lot beefier.

Thanks to a new partnership between one Cullman-based cattle farmer and his meat-processing colleague up the road in Morgan County, The Link’s food pantry can now add Alabama-raised meat to the menu of food items it offers each week to area residents in need.

On Wednesday, The Link welcomed the first of what’s sure to become many more meat deliveries under the new arrangement, as cattle farmer David Daily and meat processor Titus Weaver helped unload more than 500 pounds of ground beef and 200 pounds of breakfast sausage; centerpiece protein items — all donated by Daily and Weaver — that will soon end up on tables across Cullman County.

Daily, a Cullman resident with a large beef operation near Russellville; and Weaver, who helps run his family’s Weaver Meat Processing business in Hartselle, each are members of the Cullman-headquartered Alabama Farm Credit cooperative that extends rural lending services to farmers across 27 north Alabama counties. It was through that shared relationship that Alabama Farm Credit also got involved, in the hope that more area beef producers might see the win-win community benefit in donating a portion of their product to outreach agencies like The Link.

“It’s a good intermeshing of our rural community with sort of the city aspect of Cullman, and the broader needs of Cullman County,” explained Alabama Farm Credit CEO Mel Koller. “We’re a mission-driven organization, and we’re specifically driven to help production agriculture in the rural communities. So this is a wonderful crossover where the producers are involved, the processors are involved, the community’s involved, and The Link makes it happen.”

The need for donated food has only risen since the COVID-19 pandemic, a period when Daily first struck on the idea of sharing some of his beef at a time when food prices were surging. Since then, as The Link board of directors member Jerry Smith explained, inflation has sustained and even expanded that need, as more local families seek the nonprofit’s food pantry services with each passing week.

“We’ve seen a 600 percent increase in traffic since the first of this year,“ said Smith. “And, the thing is, we don’t really see that slowing down anytime soon.”

“Right now,” added The Link Executive Director Melissa Betts, “we’re serving about 800 families in an average month. From January of this year until this past week, we had already served more than 14,000 assistance records, and of that number, that incorporates about 4,500 families or households in this community [who receive food assistance].”

Located on the city’s east side at 708 9th Street SE, The Link opens its food pantry twice each week (Tuesdays and Thursday from 9 a.m. until 3:30 p.m.), offering food recipients a store-like shopping experience where families can browse the nonprofit’s selection of donated food items.

Thanks to Daily and Weaver, those options are expanding to include Alabama-raised meats. It’s an idea, as Daily hopes, that could grow even bigger if more area producers learn of its benefits (which for farmers includes an annual tax break), and begin pitching in with contributions of their own.

“For me, donating two or three [animals] a year is not a big deal,” said Daily. “But I can’t donate 40 a year — and that’s what The Link, and the other food banks in this area, really need. We’d love to see it scale beyond just us.”

Cattle farmer David Daily of Cullman, left, discusses his new donor’s partnership with members of The Link of Cullman County Wednesday.

The Link of Cullman County hailed a new partnership this week that welcomes area beef producers to join its mission of helping the hungry. Pictured from left as the nonprofit took delivery of its first locally-raised meat donation are Mel Koller, Alabama Farm Credit CEO; David Daily, cattle farmer and food donor; Titus Weaver, meat processor and food donor; Melissa Betts, executive director of The Link; and Jerry Smith, who serves on the nonprofit’s board of directors.

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