Steve Stanley etal. Refuses to Feed the Hungry

 

If we were Steve Stanley, and our legacy was going to be bad roads and tossing taxpayer money to a millionaire who wasted it, we would be looking for a way to help the citizens of Sheffield and the surrounding communities during our last year in office. Instead, Stanley seems to be trying to initiate as much human suffering as possible...

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From Penny Freeman, head of the Meal Barrel Project:


Poverty in Colbert County is over 9k residents. Lauderdale County: over 12k residents Franklin County: over 5k.

We serve roughly 3,100 families from these counties and surrounding communities, and we’re proud to say we’re trying to put a dent in the food insecurity situation, but the numbers will tell you that there is much more (not less) that needs to be done. 

We will be an immediate food desert without The Meal Barrel Project. Many walkers come to us from the surrounding housing projects; I’m most concerned for them and the disabled people we deliver to. Over 80% of the people we serve are elderly with only social security as their only form of income; more than 25% of that 80% raising grandchildren or great-grandchildren. 

I know I could have sent something short and condensed, but I really want to have the information to draw your own conclusions about whether or not The Meal Barrel Project is necessary in the community. Many say we can simply go somewhere else, and while that may be true, we have had a hard time finding somewhere to go. 

Couple that with the fact that we are located in an area that actually touches Tuscumbia and Sheffield, and is a little over a mile from Muscle Shoals, around 3 miles from Florence, and hopefully it’s easy to see that the community doesn’t need to lose this resource. Also, we are the largest food pantry in the state, and we’re at risk of closing down.

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There you have it - that's Steve Stanley's legacy. At this point, we can only assume he's mad at the world...