By Jennifer Whitlock
Field Editor
Dawson County Farm Bureau (CFB) is making sure local families have a happy holiday season, complete with a traditional holiday meal.
“This is our third year to take food boxes to families who may need a little help during the holidays,” Dawson County Farm Bureau Secretary Tammy Gibbs said. “We have a very generous community who loves to help people. We just let them know what’s going on, and they’re always happy to help.”
They gathered community donations for Thanksgiving meals in 2019. Then, Dawson CFB used the Texas Farm Bureau (TFB) Feeding the Need matching grant program to feed even more people at Christmas last year.
After they delivered food boxes containing turkey, ham and the traditional holiday sides and vegetables to 51 families last Christmas, there was still a small amount of funds leftover that the county had designated for food assistance programs.
So, Gibbs asked the Dawson CFB board of directors if she could start a food pantry of sorts at the office to help people in need.
“I oversee a local mission, the Nazarene Ministry, which helps needy families, so I just started putting all that together,” she said. “And if members of the community want to bring things by or give a donation, we just add to our fund and go buy more goods.”
Dawson CFB continued assisting families all throughout the year. One local church donated 30 10-pound packages of hamburger meat, which Gibbs and other Dawson CFB staff and members combined with boxes of dry goods for families in need of food.
“It’s been an ongoing thing, because we still had funds. Now, we’re doing a canned drive in the front of our county office, and we have the money to buy meat and whatever vegetables we don’t receive, so we can provide Christmas meals to local families again this year,” Gibbs said.
It feels good to help families and senior citizens, she added.
“We don’t do this to be recognized. It’s just something we like to do,” she said. “I call it ‘sharing the circle of God’s blessings’ because it’s just Him providing and us giving to those who need it. Our farmers and ranchers raise the food our nation relies on, and we’re blessed to be able to share that bounty with people in our own communities.”