PERRY, IOWA — When the Tysons Processing Plant in Perry ceased operations last June, some twelve hundred people were without jobs.

After that month the Perry Food Pantry began to notice and increase each month in number of households served. In June the Perry Pantry served 163 households. In July, that climbed to 201 households, and then to 208 served in August.

The number leveled off in November, but December is projected the Perry Food Pantry will serve 230 households.

“Because of the holidays and some people have other expenses, so they have less money to spend on food,” said Perry Food Bank Manager Lou Hoger. “Some have been living on unemployment.”

The Pantry is open Tuesday and Thursdays. Thursdays are so swamped that often clients have to wait outside the office until a chair opens inside.

But amidst the increasing demand, more donors have been stepping up.

“We’ve gotten a lot of support, just yesterday or the day before that the teachers and staff at the elementary school bought us four carts of groceries,” said Hoger. “I’ll have a group from Adel. They’re like an investment club and they just decided this year they’re going to give us their funds it was $250 per person. We got $7000.” 

The Pantry also challenged churches to place the needs of the organization on their Advent Calendar. One of those Advent gifts was dropped off Tuesday.

“I went shopping and the first week,’ said Barb Wolling, of Perry. “I just bought the first week stuff and then last weekend I bought the rest of it.”

She delivered a grocery cart full of food.