Mississippi Today
Lexington Food Pantry ‘ending hunger, giving hope’
In one of Mississippi’s most impoverished counties, at least 270 families and 415 individuals each month don’t go hungry.
That’s due to the Lexington Food Pantry.
Since 2021, the Lexington Food Pantry with the aid of the Mississippi Food Network has provided 104,501 meals in the high need Holmes County community, and, of the food provided, 22% has been fresh produce and 24% has been protein.
“Since Holmes County has the third highest poverty rate of all of MFN ‘s 56 counties at over 37%, this area has been a priority for the food bank. Mississippi Food Network is working to meet the needs in Holmes County with various programs, such as supplying the Lexington Food Pantry and serving seniors in other areas of the county,” said Cassandra Mobley, the chief operating officer of the food network..
The Jackson-based Mississippi Food Network, started 40 years ago, is a Feeding America affiliated food bank.
“The food bank was founded by a group of concerned citizens who were hoping to form a local hub for receiving food donations that could then be distributed to food pantries serving their local communities,” Mobley said. “In the first year, the food bank distributed about 139,000 pounds of food.”
At the end of this fiscal year, June 30, it had over 28 million pounds of food through its partnership network of over 430 partner organizations, she said. “That equates to 23,333,000 meals,” she said
“The food bank partners with nonprofit organizations or churches. These community organizations consist of food pantries, shelters, community kitchens as well as child feeding organizations and senior service organizations. The food bank’s child feeding efforts include backpack programs, afterschool meals, school pantries and summer meals. We serve seniors through two senior box programs that are provided to seniors 60 years of age on fixed incomes,” Mobley said.
In 2021, one of the Lexington Food Pantry’s Board members reached out to Mississippi Food Network to explore the possibility of a partnership. As part of that process, prior to becoming a food bank partner, the Lexington Food Pantry Board hosted a mobile distribution, and Mississippi Food Network provided the food. The relationship evolved into a full partnership agreement with the Lexington Food Pantry
Of Mississippi Food Network’s 56 counties, the only one that does not have a food pantry is Carroll County, Mobley said. But it is still providing resources to that county as well as other underserved areas, through direct service methods like mobile pantries and produce initiatives.
One of the most recent initiatives the food bank has introduced is connecting with Mississippi farmers to provide fresh products directly to their local communities. This initiative has allowed the food bank and local farmers a chance to connect but also given farmers the opportunity to provide for their neighbors in need.
Mobley says the future for Mississippi Food Network is more innovation to help those in need. “The Mississippi Food Network continues to expand our efforts to acquire more food as well as ensuring that the food is nutritious as we work in collaboration with other organizations to improve health outcomes for our citizens.”
At the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, Mississippi Food Network saw a significant increase in the number and amount of donations, Mobley said.
“In addition to the rates at which people were dying, the media attention placed a spotlight on hunger and food insecurity due to the supply chain issues grocery stores were facing,” she said. “Big grocery chains and food outlets could not stock their shelves in the same way they were used to, and there certainly was not enough food and grocery products left over to donate to food banks as there was prior to the pandemic. The public took note of this, and contributions to food banks like ours surged.
“We are not seeing the same levels of giving during this current rise in COVID-19 cases as we saw during the pandemic. This is probably because the current rise in cases is not dominating the news cycle as it did during the pandemic and food supply chain issues are nowhere near where they were during the pandemic. In that regard while donors, individuals, corporations and foundations, continue to give to food banks, the public is not as motivated to give at the levels we saw during the pandemic because, while the need is still here and still growing, the urgency of the need to do something about hunger and food insecurity does not appear to be as great as it was then.”
Mobley says she stays motivated because, “Mississippi has the highest food insecurity rate in the nation. The food bank’s mission is to continue to source food and provide to the over 430 partners we have in our state that serve their communities, like the Lexington Food Pantry.”
Lexington Mayor Robin McCrory said the Lexington Food Pantry’s mission is “ending hunger, giving hope.”
“Through the Mississippi State Extension Service and Aim for Change startup, Lexington secured grant funding to start our food pantry. You cannot partner unless you get nonprofit status and have a proven track record to handle inventory and distribute food,” McCrory said. “During the beginning of COVID-19, we distributed food boxes through the USDA Foods. Wwe had to meet the benchmarks through the Mississippi Food Network. “
Asked if there were an increase in assistance needed since COVID-19 cases have recently begun to rise, McCrory said the distribution rate has grown “over 50% in two to three months since the rise of COVID-19. “
“We also partner with Extra Table where they distribute to us fresh, healthy and nutritious foods. Hunter’s Harvest where we have the deer and wild game processed and distributed to the food pantry, and Society of Saint Andrews where food is gleaned through machinery on farm land and fields then picked and sent to the food pantry,” McCrory said.
“The future expansion of Lexington Food Pantry is that we will continue to work with our resources and give out more food boxes.”
Alexis Kenyatta Ellis is a freelance writer based in Lexington, Miss.
This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.
Mississippi Today
A Mississippi town moves a Confederate monument that became a shrouded eyesore
GRENADA (AP) — A Mississippi town has taken down a Confederate monument that stood on the courthouse square since 1910 — a figure that was tightly wrapped in tarps the past four years, symbolizing the community’s enduring division over how to commemorate the past.
Grenada’s first Black mayor in two decades seems determined to follow through on the city’s plans to relocate the monument to other public land. A concrete slab has already been poured behind a fire station about 3.5 miles (5.6 kilometers) from the square.
But a new fight might be developing. A Republican lawmaker from another part of Mississippi wrote to Grenada officials saying she believes the city is violating a state law that restricts the relocation of war memorials or monuments.
The Grenada City Council voted to move the monument in 2020, weeks after police killed George Floyd in Minneapolis. The vote seemed timely: Mississippi legislators had just retired the last state flag in the U.S. that prominently featured the Confederate battle emblem.
The tarps went up soon after the vote, shrouding the Confederate soldier and the pedestal he stood on. But even as people complained about the eyesore, the move was delayed by tight budgets, state bureaucracy or political foot-dragging. Explanations vary, depending on who’s asked.
A new mayor and city council took office in May, prepared to take action. On Sept. 11, with little advance notice, police blocked traffic and a work crew disassembled and removed the 20-foot (6.1-meter) stone structure.
“I’m glad to see it move to a different location,” said Robin Whitfield, an artist with a studio just off Grenada’s historic square. “This represents that something has changed.”
Still, Whitfield, who is white, said she wishes Grenada leaders had invited the community to engage in dialogue about the symbol, to bridge the gap between those who think moving it is erasing history and those who see it as a daily reminder of white supremacy. She was among the few people watching as a crane lifted parts of the monument onto a flatbed truck.
“No one ever talked about it, other than yelling on Facebook,” Whitfield said.
Mayor Charles Latham said the monument has been “quite a divisive figure” in the town of 12,300, where about 57% of residents are Black and 40% are white.
“I understand people had family and stuff to fight and die in that war, and they should be proud of their family,” Latham said. “But you’ve got to understand that there were those who were oppressed by this, by the Confederate flag on there. There’s been a lot of hate and violence perpetrated against people of color, under the color of that flag.”
The city received permission from the Mississippi Department of Archives and History to move the Confederate monument, as required. But Rep. Stacey Hobgood-Wilkes of Picayune said the fire station site is inappropriate.
“We are prepared to pursue such avenues that may be necessary to ensure that the statue is relocated to a more suitable and appropriate location,” she wrote, suggesting a Confederate cemetery closer to the courthouse square as an alternative. She said the Ladies Cemetery Association is willing to deed a parcel to the city to make it happen.
The Confederate monument in Grenada is one of hundreds in the South, most of which were dedicated during the early 20th century when groups such as the United Daughters of the Confederacy sought to shape the historical narrative by valorizing the Lost Cause mythology of the Civil War.
The monuments, many of them outside courthouses, came under fresh scrutiny after an avowed white supremacist who had posed with Confederate flags in photos posted online killed nine Black people inside the historic Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, South Carolina, in 2015.
Grenada’s monument includes images of Confederate president Jefferson Davis and a Confederate battle flag. It was engraved with praise for “the noble men who marched neath the flag of the Stars and Bars” and “the noble women of the South,” who “gave their loved ones to our country to conquer or to die for truth and right.”
A half-century after it was dedicated, the monument’s symbolism figured in a voting rights march. When the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. and other civil rights leaders held a mass rally in downtown Grenada in June 1966, Robert Green of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference scrambled up the pedestal and planted a U.S. flag above the image of Davis.
The cemetery is a spot Latham himself had previously advocated as a new site for the monument, but he said it’s too late to change now, after the city already budgeted $60,000 for the move.
“So, who’s going to pay the city back for the $30,000 we’ve already expended to relocate this?” he said. “You should’ve showed up a year and a half ago, two years ago, before the city gets to this point.”
A few other Confederate monuments in Mississippi have been relocated. In July 2020, a Confederate soldier statue was moved from a prominent spot at the University of Mississippi to a Civil War cemetery in a secluded part of the Oxford campus. In May 2021, a Confederate monument featuring three soldiers was moved from outside the Lowndes County Courthouse in Columbus to another cemetery with Confederate soldiers.
Lori Chavis, a Grenada City Council member, said that since the monument was covered by tarps, “it’s caused nothing but more divide in our city.”
She said she supports relocating the monument but worries about a lawsuit. She acknowledged that people probably didn’t know until recently exactly where it would reappear.
“It’s tucked back in the woods, and it’s not visible from even pulling behind the fire station,” Chavis said. “And I think that’s what got some of the citizens upset.”
This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.
Crooked Letter Sports Podcast
Podcast: New Orleans sports columnist and author Jeff Duncan joins the podcast to talk about his new Steve Gleason book and the new-look New Orleans Saints.
Jeff Duncan went from the Mississippi Book Festival in Jackson on Saturday to Jerry World in Dallas on Sunday where he watched and wrote about the Saints’ total dismantling of the Dallas Cowboys. We talk about both events and also about what happened in high school and college football last weekend and what’s coming up this weekend.
Stream all episodes here.
This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.
Mississippi Today
On this day in 1899
Sept. 18, 1899
Scott Joplin, known as “the King of Ragtime,” copyrighted the “Maple Leaf Rag,” which became the first song to sell more than 1 million copies of sheet music. The popularity launched a sensation surrounding ragtime, which has been called America’s “first classical music.”
Born near Texarkana, Texas, Joplin grew up in a musical family. He worked on the railroad with other family members until he was able to earn money as a musician, traveling across the South. He wound up playing at the World’s Fair in Chicago in 1893, where he met fellow musician Otis Saunders, who encouraged him to write down the songs he had been making up to entertain audiences. In all, Joplin wrote dozens of ragtime songs.
After some success, he moved to New York City, hoping he could make a living while stretching the boundaries of music. He wrote a ragtime ballet and two operas, but success in these new forms eluded him. He was buried in a pauper’s grave in New York City in 1917.
More than six decades later, his music was rediscovered, initially by Joshua Rifkin, who recorded Joplin’s songs on a record, and then Gunther Schuller of the New England Conservatory, who performed four of the ragtime songs in concert: “My faculty, many of whom had never even heard of Joplin, were saying things like, ‘My gosh, he writes melodies like Schubert!’”
Joplin’s music won over even more admirers through the 1973 movie, “The Sting,” which won an Oscar for the music. His song, “The Entertainer,” reached No. 3 on Billboard and was ranked No. 10 among “Songs of the Century” list by the Recording Industry Association of America. His opera “Treemonisha” was produced to wide acclaim, and he won a Pulitzer Prize in 1976 for his special contribution to American music.
“The ragtime craze, the faddish thing, will obviously die down, but Joplin will have his position secure in American music history,” Rifkin said. “He is a treasurable composer.”
This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.
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