BOUNTIFUL—Two years ago the Bountiful Food Pantry’s shelves were bare and the holidays were approaching. To keep the doors open, they had to get creative. That’s when the pallet program started.

“It was Halloween of 2023 and my warehouse manager and I were standing in the warehouse and wondering how we were going to keep feeding people,” said Rebekah Anderson, executive director of the Bountiful Food Pantry. “The grocery stores were keeping our doors open. We pick up food from them every day.”

 People who have been working at the pantry since it opened said they’d never seen it so empty, she said. “And we were staring Thanksgiving in the face.”

John Hollingshead and Mark McSwain of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints Communications Council had the idea to organize a pallet drive, she said. 

“We were nervous and everyone was panicking,” said Hollingshead. “So we sat down and said ‘who’s got the brains and money?’ We said, ‘well people that have businesses and also those who have retired and are comfortable financially as well as just normal people.’ That’s when we put together the pallet program.”

The pallet project is where money is raised per pallet, he said. “We raise either $3,000 which is the average cost of a pallet of food or a half a pallet which is $1,500. Our goal between now and the end of the year is to raise $200,000. We’re doing pretty good. I think we’ll get there.”

The pantry needed food that wasn’t dropped off at the doorstep, said Mark McSwain. “Things like meat, milk and other necessities.”

A couple of years ago the pantry still needed 1,000 turkeys the week before Thanksgiving, he said. “We decided to organize the pallet drive to get food back on the shelves quickly. We started calling all of the people we knew. Our goal was $50,000. In a week we got it.”

There are about 1,400 students in Davis County without a permanent home, said McSwain. “We weren’t going to let the kids go to bed hungry. There are things on the pallet to make a meal for Pantry Packs. They’re for the kids on weekends. It’s amazing how good people are to donate.”

 “One of the cool things about the pallet project is it really frees us up to buy what we need at any given time,” said Anderson. “A lot of times it’s stuff we don’t get on food drives. So, for example if Smith’s is having a really good sale on cheese we can go buy a whole bunch of cheese and then everybody gets cheese that week. That’s a huge blessing because that’s something we don’t get from food drives.”

The pantry often gets a lot of peanut butter in food drives, she said. “But we get no jam. So we can use this money to buy the jam and then people can have peanut butter and jam sandwiches for their kids.”

So this is a really good way to fill in some gaps, Anderson said. “We get tons and tons of tuna during food drives. People love tuna and we tend to run out. I love giving tuna to people because there are so many different ways you can use it. So I think it feeds a family in a multitude of ways. So when we run out of tuna and Associated Foods has its annual sale then we can get a whole bunch of tuna for way cheaper than it would cost the community to go buy a can. So it’s a big benefit.”

Anderson said there are times when the pantry has saved 40% on a pallet of food. “So the money goes a lot further and we don’t have to pay taxes on it. So right off the top we’re saving a lot of money that way. So it’s a really good cost effective way to fill in some gaps that we would otherwise not have a way to fill.”

The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) is set to end Nov. 1 due to the government shutdown. Anderson said they’re prepared. “We’ve done a lot of strategizing,” she said. “I was just talking to my warehouse manager and we said, ‘you know what’s awesome? We’re not going to run out of food for a long time because we have this pallet project money.’ We’re going to fill in the gaps which is great.”

Anderson said the pantry still needs food and monetary donations. “But we’ve got kind of this nice little cushion with the pallet project that’s going to be able to help us during this critical time.”

Right now, Anderson said the pantry isn’t changing anything they’re doing. “We are simply girding our loins and getting ready. “If come Saturday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday our numbers increase significantly then at that point we’ll problem solve if we need to but we have a very good set up. We have a very supportive community. We have really good volunteers and we’re hopeful that we’re going to be just fine and we’re going to be able to meet this need.”

The goal is to help everybody who is in need at this time, she said. “We cannot do it by ourselves. We’re a very good organization. We are very proud of what we do but we simply would not be able to do it without the help of our community.”

For more information about donating to the pallet project or the pantry visit bountifulpantry.org.