Copperas Cove non-profit hosts last minute food giveaway

COPPERAS COVE, Texas (KWTX) - Dozens of families have food on the table after a last minute food drive put on by a Copperas Cove non-profit, The Refuge Corporation.

Even though the event came together in just one week but it wasn’t too short of notice for the community.

It was a long line outside of Halstead Elementary School but this time it wasn’t for the dreaded school pick up process.

It’s where dozens of volunteers from The Refuge Corporation set up a grocery store on the go.

Lester Matthews is with the non-profit and as he looked out at the sea of cars filled with families in need and he was awe-struck by the response.

“It’s wonderful to see people out here,” says Matthews.

An event like this isn’t uncommon for the organization. Usually they hold drives like this every third Saturday of every month but they put this one together in a week.

“Due to the shut down and people needing food, we got a call from one of the schools and we decided to do a distribution this week,” Matthew explains.

They typically work with the Central Texas Food Bank of Austin but they had to work with what they had to make this drive happen.

“But this was a short notice so we actually prepared a lot of the food today ourselves in our food pantry,” says Matthews.

And he says that he would have planned it in a day if that’s what the community needed.

“There’s no part in being of the community if you can’t serve the community so it’s our goal to help wherever we can help in the community with the food distributions,” he says.

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