Local volunteer group partners with community center to give away free holiday meals

The J.L.

King Center in Starkville partnered with the Starkville Strong volunteer group to hand out free Thanksgiving meals.

Oktibbeha county) starkville strong director ) king director ) im here at the jl king center in starkville who partnerd with the starkville strong volunteer group today to hand out free thanksgiving meals today as you can see behind me in that tent.

They packed at least 300 boxes full of thanksgiving food for the holiday.

"a lot of people are suffering more now than ever and it's people that may not have suffered before the pandemic accentuated that."

Brandi herrington is the director of the starkville strong facebook group that started because of the coronavirus pandemic.

Today the group made and served free meals to the starkville community in hopes that everyone in the community has a hot meal for the holiday.

The giveaway took place at the j.

L.

King community center "a lower income side of town, so this particular side of town is side we wanted to serve."

Everyone in the community was welcome to the drive through pick up.

However j.l.

King center director latalla harris said she partnered with the volunteer group so that people in the area with less resouces were able to travel a shorter distance to attend the giveaway.

"anything that people need we try to get together the resources for within our abilities within our means."

Herrington said all the food was paid for and provided by each individual volunteer.

And she said for those in the community who did not have means to drive to the giveaway... "we had a sign up and people that signed up to deliver, whatever we have left over that's not given out at the drive through we will take that and deliver it to those people.

And if we have some beyond that we will deliver to neighborhood here in town."

Herrington said the group formed because of the pandemic but they plan to continue to serve the community even after the pandemic comes to an end.

Reporting in starkville erin wilson wtva 9 news