LENORE – The line stretches out the door, across the porch, down the steps and into the parking lot.

“We used to open at 10 a.m.,” Ruth Vance said. “But so many people were coming early to line up out front, we started opening earlier.”

Vance is a member of the Parsley Bottom Freewill Baptist Church at Lenore. She and 10 to 12 others come every Thursday to work in the food pantry next door to the church at Lenore. This week, the pantry was distributing more groceries than usual, due to the Thanksgiving holiday next week.

The bank distributes groceries from their building adjacent to the church on the fourth Thursday of each month; the first three weeks of the month they deliver hot meals to those who cannot get out of their homes.

On average, the church helps between 90 and 100 families each month, but with the holidays, the need increases, Vance said. The Thursday before Thanksgiving, at least 129 parcels of groceries were given away.

Vance said she wasn’t sure if the state of the economy has affected the number of people who visit the food bank each month, but she did think there were more seniors coming in.

The building that houses the food pantry has eight refrigerators, shelves line another room with boxes filled with food to help families put dinner on the table when their money and benefits are gone.

“We operate mainly on donations,” Ruth Vance said. “We buy from the Huntington food bank and receive donations from businesses such as WalMart and Food City.”

The Mingo County Commission recently gave the food bank $1,500, but most of the monetary donations come from individuals, Vance explained.

Even the grocery carts used to take groceries in and out of the building were donated from Food City and the old K-Mart store at the Southside Mall.

The food bank doesn’t receive referrals from agencies such as DHHR, but relies on word of mouth to reach those in need. They ask for proof of residency and income, although they do not turn anyone away, serving families within an eight-mile radius of the church.

Parsley Bottom opened the food bank over 14 years ago with an anonymous donation of $5,000. Wayne Runyon was the minister of the church at the time, and the pantry was his brainchild.

The current president of the food bank is Roosevelt Lucas, who is currently undergoing chemotherapy for leukemia. Wilma is the treasurer, bookkeeper, food buyer and general labor for the organization.

“I have talked about quitting, but can’t seem to do it,” Wilma said. “I love doing this.”