Christmas commodities to be available Dec. 8-9

By Melinda L. Lucas

A “Christmas Bag” will be available Dec. 8-9 to Shackelford County families who normally get monthly commodity food, according to county justice of the peace James Breeden, who oversees the program.

Breeden said last week that Albany and Moran recipients were supposed to have gotten a bag of Thanksgiving foods on Nov. 3-4, but he was not able to distribute the products because they were not available.

“We know that some families were counting on that bag for their Thanksgiving meal, but we just weren’t able to get them,” said the judge. “It was out of our control, but we’re still very sorry we weren’t able to provide those.”

The Thanksgiving bag is typically available in addition to the November commodities.

To try to make up for it, Breeden plans to put together the extra Christmas foods to hand out during the regular December distribution dates, which will be Dec. 8 in Moran and Dec. 9 in Albany.

The commodity supplemental food program (CSFP) is federally funded and works to improve the health of low-income and elderly people at least 60 years of age by supplementing their diets with nutritious USDA commodity foods.